This week’s lectionary passages contain a pair of warnings about the urgency of changing our behavior -- Jonah tells the Ninevites that they have a mere 40 days before God will bring down a calamity on them and overthrow their city, while Paul writes to the Corinthians that “the appointed time has grown short.” In each case, the warning is an unpopular but necessary message to its hearers about the importance of confronting an imminent threat... one that can only be dealt with by a complete reversal in behavior because the status quo is untenable -- as Paul bluntly puts it: “the present form of this world is passing away.” In this installment of The Immediate Word, team member Mary Austin notes that we find ourselves in a similar situation regarding the looming specter of climate change.
Scientists have repeatedly raised the alarm in recent years about the existence and implications of human-created global warming -- and their warnings gained even more urgency in recent days with the sobering news that NASA and NOAA (the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) have determined that 2014 was Earth’s hottest year on record. Even Pope Francis weighed in on the matter this past week, expressing his belief that global warming is “mostly” man-made and that human beings have “slapped nature in the face.” Yet, as Mary notes, public acceptance of that message has been tepid at best -- leading many who are concerned about the serious risks to our way of life to ponder how to get people to listen. Indeed, judging by the legislative priorities of the incoming Congress -- specifically, the attempt to pass a bill permitting construction of the Keystone pipeline, even in the face of falling oil and gasoline prices -- those warnings are falling on deaf ears. That state of affairs was underlined when, as part of the amendment process on the Keystone bill, the Senate even voted on whether climate change itself was real.
As Mary points out, one reason we are so skeptical may be because the effects (and the dangers) aren’t tangible yet, aren’t immediately visible like those of air and water pollution. And then there’s the focus on short-term economic concerns (particularly in the developing world) rather than on the future viability of our civilization. Yet, she suggests, as people of faith we should understand the urgency of a message that is beyond the experience of our senses. Are we willing to take seriously the scriptural message about how quickly the “appointed time” will be upon us? Denying a clearly compelling (if unpopular and inconvenient) message is completely at odds with how the Ninevites, as well as the fishermen in our gospel text, responded. They were willing to heed the urgent message presented to them and utterly change the trajectory of their lives. Will we be able to do likewise... to actually change our behavior and leave our old ways behind?
Team member Chris Keating shares some additional thoughts about how cognizant we are of the messages that we send. Jonah and Jesus each communicated a clear, concise message that would be hard to misunderstand. The message might be rejected or ignored, but it’s difficult to miss the gist of “Forty days more, and then doom!” or “Follow me, and you’ll fish for people.” Yet, as Chris notes, messages and their contexts are much more complex and muddled in our world -- so even in the most innocent of circumstances, the message we think we’re sending is not necessarily the one that is received. So, Chris advises us, if we expect people to respond to difficult and unpopular but extremely urgent messages, it’s vital to make our communication as clear, concise, and straightforward as that of Jonah and Jesus.
Urgent Message
by Mary Austin
1 Corinthians 7:29-31
The time is short, Paul tells the church in the city of Corinth, and the known world is ending. Things are urgent, he says, and it’s time for dramatic changes. In similar ways, the warming of the earth is changing our environment, and the world we know is ending. Still, we’re reluctant to hear the messengers who tell us that news. We don’t want to listen, and we especially don’t want to change how we live. Were the people of Corinth equally inattentive to Paul’s message? What would get us to listen?
In the World
Messengers from the world of science have been saying for a number of years that the warming of the earth is causing permanent harm to the environment. The National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and NASA issued a statement this past Friday about the advance of global warming, noting that 2014 was the warmest year since data began being compiled in 1880. A Reuters article on the government agencies’ findings noted: “Last year was Earth’s hottest on record in new evidence that people are disrupting the climate by burning fossil fuels that release greenhouse gases into the air.” The report added: “The 10 warmest years since records began in the 19th century have all been since 1997, the data showed. Last year was the warmest, ahead of 2010, undermining claims by some skeptics that global warming has stopped in recent years. Record temperatures in 2014 were spread around the globe, including most of Europe stretching into northern Africa, the western United States, far eastern Russia into western Alaska, parts of interior South America, parts of eastern and western coastal Australia, and elsewhere, NASA and NOAA said.”
The Washington Post reported recently on a study in the journal Science, which found that human activity has already changed four of nine parameters which are known to make Earth habitable to humankind: “The researchers focused on nine separate planetary boundaries first identified by scientists in a 2009 paper. These boundaries set theoretical limits on changes to the environment, and include ozone depletion, freshwater use, ocean acidification, atmospheric aerosol pollution, and the introduction of exotic chemicals and modified organisms. Beyond each planetary boundary is a ‘zone of uncertainty.’ This zone is meant to acknowledge the inherent uncertainties in the calculations, and to offer decision-makers a bit of a buffer, so that they can potentially take action before it’s too late to make a difference. Beyond that zone of uncertainty is the unknown -- planetary conditions unfamiliar to us.” We are changing our environment in ways we don’t fully understand, turning the Earth into a place where we may not be able to live. The scientists note that the changes are unmistakable, but the effects on human life are unknown.
As the Washington Post article notes: “The scientists say there is no certainty that catastrophe will follow the transgression of these boundaries. Rather, the scientists cite the precautionary principle: We know that human civilization has risen and flourished in the past 10,000 years -- an epoch known as the Holocene -- under relatively stable environmental conditions. No one knows what will happen to civilization if planetary conditions continue to change. But the authors of the Science paper write that the planet ‘is likely to be much less hospitable to the development of human societies.’ ”
Are we listening to these messengers from the scientific community, as they bring urgent news of the planet’s warming? Except for a few skeptics, the scientific community speaks with the same message -- the time to act is short. The New York Times notes that it’s hard to know how to respond: “Twenty years of global negotiations aimed at slowing the growth of heat-trapping emissions have yielded little progress. However, 2014 saw signs of large-scale political mobilization on the issue, as more than 300,000 people marched in New York City in September, and tens of thousands more took to the streets in other cities around the world.” How should we respond to these messengers who bring urgent news about our world?
As the Atlantic summarizes the dilemma, “How is one supposed to respond to this kind of news? On the one hand, the transformation of the Antarctic seems like an unfathomable disaster. On the other hand, the disaster will never affect me or anyone I know; nor, very probably, will it trouble my grandchildren. How much consideration do I owe the people it will affect, my 40-times-great-grandchildren, who, many climate researchers believe, will still be confronted by rising temperatures and seas? Americans don’t even save for their own retirement! How can we worry about such distant, hypothetical beings?” Marching is a start, but what next?
We outsource social change to activists and experts, but as the same article observes: “In the best of times, this problem -- given its apocalyptic stakes, bewildering scale, and vast potential cost -- would be difficult to resolve. But we are not in the best of times. We are in a time of legislative paralysis. In an important step, the Obama administration announced in June its decision to cut power-plant emissions 30 percent by 2030. Otherwise, this country has seen strikingly little political action on climate change, despite three decades of increasingly high-pitched chatter by scientists, activists, economists, pundits, and legislators.” What are we all called to do now?
In the Scriptures
Paul lived in world far from climate change, but he does understand urgency. “The appointed time has grown short,” Paul proclaims to the church in the city of Corinth. It’s clear that a response is needed, and Paul urges a series of radical changes in the lives of the believers. People should move toward dramatic reversals, Paul says: “[F]rom now on, let even those who have wives be as though they had none, and those who mourn as though they were not mourning, and those who rejoice as though they were not rejoicing, and those who buy as though they had no possessions.” Paul believes that Jesus will return very soon, and so the matters of this world are of little consequence. One of his recommendations contradicts the other, suggesting that the changes are spiritual preparation.
Valerie Nicolet-Anderson writes for workingpreacher.org that Paul’s examples are “puzzling: he discusses those who are married, those who are crying, those who are rejoicing, those who are involved in commercial transaction, and finally those who benefit from the world. There seems to be no clear logic to Paul’s enumeration, and no clear relationship between the different categories. The categories are also far from exhaustive. Previously, he had added circumcision and slavery to the type of situations that should not be modified. But in the case of circumcision and slavery, Paul seemed to say that there are matters of indifference. One should not bother one way or another. Here, with the ‘as if not,’ Paul seems to introduce another nuance. One can continue engaging in whatever behavior, but one should engage in it ‘as if not.’ What does this mean? And how do you do it?” We need to shock ourselves by doing the opposite of what we usually do. Only that kind of shock to the system, Paul suggests, will be enough.
Stan Mast calls this a call to “unentangled living.” He goes on to quote Martin Luther, saying that “the hearty Reformer who loved a great meal, a good beer, and a lively conversation summed up this text in typically memorable fashion. ‘We must not sink too deeply into either love and desire, or suffering and boredom, but should rather behave like guests.’... Paul’s last words in our text point directly at those last words in Luther’s famous hymn [“A Mighty Fortress”]. ‘His kingdom is forever,’ but ‘this world in its present form is passing away.’ Actually, Paul says that the schema of this world is passing away. The world is not passing away, only its schema. That word was often used of the theatre to refer to the changing acts and characters of a play, to ‘an actor leaving the stage.’ We can get all tied up with the surface affairs of life, with politics and finances and sports and relationships. Paul reminds us that these thoroughly engrossing things are passing away; the curtain is coming down.” Scientists say the same -- the world isn’t ending, but the form of the environment we understand and can live in is. This is a truth both scientific and spiritual -- things are not permanent.
In the Sermon
The sermon might look at how we live with impermanence. We believe that what exists will always be there, even though our health, our children, our parents, our work, and our finances all change continually. Change is the one constant, people often say, but we don’t live as if we believe it. We react with shock and dismay to even predictable changes, and grief is always woven together with change. How can we strengthen our spiritual muscles so that we live more gracefully in a changing world?
Or the sermon might look at what it takes to get us to listen to urgent messages. How do we take in and embrace Paul’s sense of urgency? Our lives are convenient the way they are, and we have no idea what to do to make an impact on the climate change question. The Atlantic article noted above observes: “As an issue, climate change is perfect for symbolic battle, because it is as yet mostly invisible. Carbon dioxide, its main cause, is not emitted in billowing black clouds, like other pollutants; nor is it caustic, smelly, or poisonous. A side effect of modernity, it has for now a tiny practical impact on most people’s lives.” How do we learn to concentrate on what we can’t see?
Or the sermon might look at climate change as a justice issue. We think of the way climate change will impact our own lives, but a recent study highlights the disparate impact on poorer nations. Another Atlantic article notes that “warming temperatures will economically affect high- and low-income countries differently. ‘There have been many studies that suggest rich and poor countries will fare very differently when dealing with future climate change effects, and we wanted to explore that,’ [the study’s] co-author Delavane Diaz said. The researchers noted that because poor countries are on average hotter than rich countries and have less rigid infrastructure, they might suffer greater economic costs due to climate change.” Is our indifference to climate change causing suffering for our global neighbors? How do we reconcile our life as people of faith with causing harm to others?
As people of faith, we are the experts in things that can’t be seen. We have something to add to the conversation, with our ability to connect unseen realities with everyday life. We understand the impermanent and the intangible. Scientists have graphs and charts, but we are practiced in knowing that the future is embodied in the present. With Paul, we know well that the present form of the earth is always passing away, and his words invite us into this conversation.
SECOND THOUGHTS
Puzzling Perplexities: Why Messages Matter
by Chris Keating
Jonah 3:1-5, 10; Mark 1:14-20
Some messages are as clear as day.
God gave Jonah a pretty clear set of instructions: “Get up, get going, and tell the people of Nineveh their days are numbered.” Pretty straightforward, which sort of makes one wonder why God had to tell Jonah twice.
Likewise, Jesus’ message to the fishermen was about as plain as the nets in their hands: “Follow me and I will make you fish for people.” No fancy prologue, no long speeches, just the simple invitation. Best of all, it worked -- as Mark so wonderfully points out. Immediately Simon and Andrew set down their nets. Moments later, James and John leave the family seafood business behind for a new direction.
Other messages, however, are more tangled than James’ empty nets. Politicians? World leaders? Terrorists? Sometimes the messages these groups send are often muddled and misunderstood. The resulting confusion can be either as benign as a political gaffe or as deadly as brutal terrorism.
Messages matter, as the Ninevites discovered. As the story goes, their king was so moved by Jonah’s jaunt across the city that he repented, turning his country from their evil ways. This week’s Epiphany texts offer an opportunity to think about the messages we send, and how the church is called to urgently, clearly, and repeatedly proclaim God’s delightful grace.
In the News
Sometimes, the message is about what is left unspoken, or even who is not present.
When President Obama did not attend the unity rally in Paris following the recent terrorist attacks, the White House later scrambled to explain his absence. Though more than 40 world leaders were present, offering messages of unity and hope in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo slayings, the United States was represented only by its ambassador and several other lower-ranking officials.
It was called the biggest public gathering in France’s history. Stunning images of solidarity included the president of France walking arm-in-arm with German chancellor Angela Merkel, and Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu standing with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas. Many in the crowds carried signs honoring the slain journalists, using the famous acclamation “Je suis Charlie.”
President Obama and Vice-President Joe Biden stayed home, drawing fire from critics (and cartoonists). In response, the White House conceded that it should have sent a more prominent official to Paris.
Yet even the rally itself posed questions. While the march ostensibly promoted free speech, some critics mocked the participation of several world leaders who have less than stellar records in supporting freedom of the press.
The Huffington Post reported on Monday that some observers saw the presence of leaders from countries such as Russia, Turkey, and Egypt as “strange” due to those countries’ records of intimidating or imprisoning journalists.
What sort of message does that send? Daniel Wickham, co-president of the Middle East Society at the London School of Economics, highlighted the hypocrisy in a series of tweets. He pointed out that Turkey imprisons more journalists than any other country, and that Israel had killed seven reporters in 2014.
The attack itself may have even provided an unintended message. The terrorists who targeted Charlie Hebdo wanted to shut down the magazine that tags itself as the “journal irresponsable.” But the actual effect may have been to raise the magazine’s profile. Millions purchased the latest edition, when it normally has a circulation of only around 60,000.
Confusing and obtuse messages are not limited to the world stage, of course. Movie critics and audiences were perplexed by the announcement of the nominations for this year’s Oscar awards. In a year marked by increased racial tensions, no person of color received an Oscar nomination. The academy gave two bids to Selma, the film retelling the story of voting rights marches in Alabama, but failed to nominate either the movie’s director or its lead actor. According to the Daily Beast, the message is this: “[T]he nominations for the most prestigious and important awards in entertainment reflect the movie tastes not of a complicated, modern, and diverse culture, but of a bunch of old white guys.”
There were also mixed messages in this week’s domestic politics. As contenders line up for the 2016 presidential campaign, one familiar candidate made an abrupt change. Or did he? Mitt Romney seemed to send signals that he may be ramping up a third attempt for president, much to the confusion of his potential rivals. In a reversal of previous announcements, Romney met with potential donors last week to tell them he’s thinking about running. But he’s not sure. Maybe.
Officially, it seems Romney is on the fence. At least that much is clear -- perhaps.
In the Scriptures
Jonah also tried to ride the rails. Actually, he tried to sail away from the muddling middle. He fled from prophesying about God’s intentions. It didn’t work. Despite his misgivings, the reluctant prophet eventually went as God had instructed him. The message was clear: the vile, filthy city of Ninevah was doomed.
There was not much wiggle room in his pronouncement. No extra context was needed to fill in the picture. Jonah is concise about what is going to happen: “Forty days more and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” (v. 4). Bad news, Ninevites -- your days are numbered.
Jonah didn’t expect great results. He wasn’t from their nation, although it could be argued that it would be hard to ignore a guy who had just spent three days in the belly of a fish. Jonah’s assignment is outrageous, impossible, nearly farcical. But he goes, proclaiming a clear message: time is almost up.
Jesus’ message to the disciples is likewise clear and urgent. His message reflects the transparent urgency of God’s imminent redemption. Indeed, “immediately” seems to be one of Mark’s favorite phrases. There is a compelling urgency about everything in this text: “the time is fulfilled, the kingdom has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.” It is this clear message that Jesus brings to the fishermen he encounters: “Follow me.”
In the Sermon
It is time for the church to become clear about its message. We may have tried to run away from this calling -- only to end up like Jonah, spit up on a beach smelling like fish emesis. The church has forgotten the good news that Jesus has given to us, and now is the time to start fishing again. But it will take the urgency of Jonah, the curiosity of Simon and Andrew -- and perhaps even the impetuous nature of James and John, who leave their father in the boat. In each of these callings, there is a holy urgency.
But there is also clarity. Jonah understands that God’s mind can be changed. (It was one of the reasons why he didn’t want to go to Nineveh in the beginning.) Jesus understands that the kairos moment of God’s kingdom has arrived -- and that it is good news. Both messages are clear about the new thing that God is about to do. God is on the loose, and as Psalm 62 notes, both power and steadfast love belong to God.
Part of getting clear about God’s message is empowering persons to fulfill their callings. Our proclamation needs to invite new disciples to go fishing. We should be calling new prophets to wander around the city proclaiming God’s desires. That is the message we have been given.
We live in a world of diffuse and complicated messages. This week, however, the church can be a place where the message is clear: “Trust in (God) at all times, O people, pour out your heart before (God); God is a refuge for us” (Psalm 62:8).
ILLUSTRATIONS
From team member Leah Lonsbury:
Jonah 3:1-5, 10; Psalm 62:5-12; 1 Corinthians 7:29-31; Mark 1:14-20
How clearly are we hearing the messages that are coming to us from God and God’s messengers? How do our reactions depend on how we hear and listen? How clearly and concisely are we communicating? What happens when our message gets muddled and the message we think we are sending is not the one that is received?
Even a short search online can turn up a number of ways we miscommunicate in our daily lives. Here are a few...
* Commonly misused words and phrases
* Words everyone uses incorrectly
* Do you use the word “ironic” correctly?
* Have you been using these everyday phrases properly?
* Words with a racist/prejudiced history
* Words that don’t mean what you think they mean
*****
With new technologies abounding and viewership of last year’s State of the Union reaching a 14-year low (trailing the Super Bowl by almost 80 million viewers), President Obama’s staff is having “to work harder and be a lot smarter” than ever to get the president’s message out to the American people, according to senior Obama adviser Dan Pfeiffer. Read more about how the White House staff is tailoring their message and its delivery here.
How hard are we willing to work and what are we willing to change to send and receive God’s word for our lives in a constantly changing world?
*****
Anti-Muslim attacks have soared in France in the wake of the attacks in Paris two weeks ago. France’s National Observatory Against Islamophobia said 116 anti-Muslim incidents have been reported to the authorities since the attacks on a kosher store and the offices of Charlie Hebdo. The two-week tally more than doubles the number of incidents recorded for all of January 2014, and it includes 28 attacks on places of worship and 88 threats.
President Francois Hollande and his government have called for unity following the attacks, with Hollande reiterating in a speech last week that “Muslims are the main victims of terrorism.”
Not all the messages being communicated to France’s public and the world fall along these unified lines, however. Some highly visible and influential political figures in France are making a very different point. The Agence France-Presse reports:
A senior member of the far-right National Front (FN) representing the party in the European Parliament, Aymeric Chauprade, declared in a video last week that France was “at war with some Muslims.”
“We’re told a majority of Muslims are peaceful. But a majority of Germans were also (peaceful) before 1933 and national socialism,” he said.
What is the impact of the messages we send and the words we choose to send them?
***************
From team member Ron Love:
Jonah 3:1-5, 10
A recent article in the New York Times magazine quoted a National Science Foundation survey reporting that a third of Americans believe astrology is “sort of scientific” and another 10 percent believe it is “very scientific.” The Times article discusses how such “retrograde beliefs” have become a defense for “magical thinking.” The reason the Times addressed this subject is because on January 21st the planet Mercury will make its first pass by the Earth in 2015 -- and since Mercury has a strange looping arc (unlike any other planet), it is regarded by astrologers as having added significance.
Application: When Jonah spoke, there was no question that his message came not from pseudoscience but was the very message of the Creator.
*****
1 Corinthians 7:29-31
Michio Kushi recently died at the age of 88. As a young man he studied political science at Tokyo University, believing that was a means to establish world peace; but after voluminous reading he realized that politics was not the answer. Kushi then studied under George Ohsawa, who taught him that food was the key to health and world peace. Kushi came to understand that a proper diet sustains the concept of yin and yang which allows one to be in perfect balance, and his message became that diet is the pathway to good health and peace. Kushi established the Erewhon brand of natural foods, which popularized staples of the macrobiotic diet and which were sold in stores by the same name across the globe.
Application: Paul instructed us on the important and significant possessions that we are to make a part of our lives.
*****
Mark 1:14-20
Several years ago John McPhee wrote an essay for the Wall Street Journal titled “Writing a Strong Lead Is Half the Battle.” McPhee contends that in any written work, writing the lead sentence “is the hardest part of the story to write,” yet it is the most important. McPhee, a Pulitzer Prize winner, concluded his essay with this admonition: “A lead is good not because it dances, fires cannons, or whistles like a train, but because it is absolute to what follows.”
Application: Jesus began his lead with “Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.” These words became the absolute to what would follow in the ministry of those who followed him.
*****
Mark 1:14-20
Marla Malcolm Beck, the CEO of beauty product company Bluemercury, told the New York Times that in college she received advice which has guided her professional career ever since. A professor told her to “be an expert at something” -- and she has learned that doing so will give her a skill to be a part of any organization.
Application: Those who Jesus chose to follow him were experts in missions and evangelism.
WORSHIP RESOURCES
by George Reed
Call to Worship
Leader: For God alone we wait in silence, for our hope is from God.
People: God alone is our rock and our salvation, our fortress; I shall not be shaken.
Leader: On God rests our deliverance and our honor.
People: Our mighty rock, our refuge is in God.
Leader: Trust in God at all times, O people; to God pour out your heart.
People: God is a refuge for us. Blessed be God’s name.
OR
Leader: Let us worship our God who is with us in the midst of life.
People: We gladly offer our praises to our God who goes with us.
Leader: Sometimes it seems that life is constantly changing.
People: In every changing event, God invites us to change for the better.
Leader: Our God is not content to let us wander aimlessly.
People: God calls us to change course so that we are headed for life and wholeness.
Hymns and Sacred Songs
“Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah”
found in:
UMH: 127
H82: 690
PH: 281
AAHH: 138, 139, 140
NNBH: 232
NCH: 18, 19
CH: 622
LBW: 343
ELA: 618
W&P: 501
AMEC: 52, 53, 65
“Dear Lord and Father of Mankind”
found in:
UMH: 358
H82: 652, 653
PH: 345
NCH: 502
CH: 594
LBW: 506
W&P: 470
AMEC: 344
“Tú Has Venido a la Orilla” (“Lord, You Have Come to the Lakeshore”)
found in:
UMH: 344
PH: 377
CH: 342
W&P: 347
“Jesus Calls Us”
found in:
UMH: 398
H82: 549, 550
NNBH: 183
NCH: 171, 172
CH: 337
LBW: 494
ELA: 696
W&P: 343
AMEC: 238
“Take My Life, and Let It Be”
found in:
UMH: 399
H82: 707
PH: 391
NNBH: 213
NCH: 448
CH: 609
LBW: 406
ELA: 683, 685
W&P: 466
AMEC: 292
Renew: 150
“O Master, Let Me Walk with Thee”
found in:
UMH: 430
H82: 659, 660
PH: 357
NNBH: 445
NCH: 503
CH: 602
LBW: 492
ELA: 818
W&P: 589
AMEC: 299
“O God of Every Nation”
found in:
UMH: 435
H82: 607
PH: 289
CH: 680
LBW: 416
ELA: 713
W&P: 626
“Open My Eyes, That I May See”
found in:
UMH: 454
PH: 324
NNBH: 218
CH: 586
W&P: 480
AMEC: 285
“Change My Heart, O God”
found in:
CCB: 56
Renew: 143
“Make Me a Servant”
found in:
CCB: 90
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
CCB: Cokesbury Chorus Book
Renew: Renew! Songs & Hymns for Blended Worship
Prayer for the Day / Collect
O God who calls us to change from our self-destructive ways: Grant us the wisdom to see the folly of our actions and the courage to transform them into healing works; through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.
OR
We come to worship you and praise your name, O God. You created us with the ability to think and to make decisions, including the choice to change. Open our hearts to your word today, so that we may see where our ways are leading us in the wrong direction. Fill us with your Spirit, so that we may with courage make better choices about our lives. Amen.
Prayer of Confession
Leader: Let us confess to God and before one another our sins, and especially our reluctance to accept change.
People: We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. We know that our behavior is not always what it needs to be and that our choices are not always wise. Far too often we choose a path that leads to harm for ourselves and for those around us. We choose things that break us and our relationships, instead of choosing the things that heal and unify. Forgive us and renew us in your Spirit, that we may become what you created us to be. Amen.
Leader: God created us in love and comes to us in love each day. Know God’s grace, forgiveness, and strength, that you may be truly be a child of the Most High.
Prayers of the People (and the Lord’s Prayer)
Praise be to you, O God, for you seek our good and our salvation.
(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 our behavior is not always what it needs to be and that our choices are not always wise. Far too often we choose a path that leads to harm for ourselves and for those around us. We choose things that break us and our relationships, instead of choosing the things that heal and unify. Forgive us and renew us in your Spirit, that we may become what you created us to be.
We thank you that you do not leave us alone to wander aimlessly in life. Nor do you sit on the sidelines and watch as we head into trouble and destruction. We thank you for the guidance you offer us and for the care you take to redirect our ways.
(Other thanksgivings may be offered.)
We pray for all your children in their needs, and especially for those who have lost their way in life. We know what it is like to be headed in the wrong direction, and we pray that as you seek the lost ones we would join you in your task.
(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
Have you ever tried to push open a door, and then discovered that you needed to pull it open instead? Doing something like that can make us feel silly -- but what would be even sillier would be if, even after we found out that we needed to pull it, we continued to push on the door. That would really be silly. Sometimes we make mistakes and are headed for trouble. God is always trying to help us go the right way. When that happens, we need to gladly try something different.
CHILDREN’S SERMON
Time Is Running Out
by Wesley T. Runk
1 Corinthians 7:29-31
Object: two bars of soap -- one new, and one very used (much smaller)
I brought with me today a couple of friends that most of you probably know, but who you perhaps don’t talk to very often. How many of you have ever met Billy Big Bar and his older brother Larry Little Bar? (show the soap) Billy and Larry are good friends, but Billy worries a lot about Larry. Every day when they wake up, Billy looks at Larry and becomes very sad. Do you know why Billy is sad about Larry? (let the children answer) That’s right; Larry is smaller today than he was yesterday. Do you know why? (let them answer) That’s right; someone used Larry, and there is less of him today than there was yesterday. One day something is going to happen that is going to make Billy very unhappy if he doesn’t learn something that he doesn’t know right now. Do you know what is going to happen to Larry that could make Billy sad? (let them answer) That’s right; Larry is going to disappear. He is going to be gone forever. Would that make you sad if you were Larry’s big brother? (let them answer)
Maybe it would, but it shouldn’t. We must remember that this is the way that Larry and Billy were made, and someday the same thing is going to happen to Billy. It is a plan for soap to be used up and someday to be all gone. Billy shouldn’t feel bad, but instead he should feel good for Larry because Larry is making the plan come true.
That is the same way for us. When God made the world that we live in, he knew that there was another world and that we would not stay here forever. Our world is like a piece of soap. Someday it is going to be all used up and we will disappear from this world, just like Larry Little Bar is going to disappear. But it will be the way that God has planned it, and therefore it will be good.
You and I are not going to live forever. Someday we will die according to the plan. Everyone else will die also. They will be used up, just like us. The world that we live in will be used up, and it will sort of die. But God has a bigger plan and a better plan for all of us and for all of his world. The time is always closer to the end, but none of us knows when the end will come. We must trust that God will take good care of us and make us part of his new world when it is finished.
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The Immediate Word, January 25, 2015, issue.
Copyright 2015 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.
