Wealthy People Vibes
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For October 13, 2024:
Wealthy People Vibes
by Mary Austin
Mark 10:17-31
As a kid, I could never figure out why my parents talked about gas prices all the time, or drove across town to get a cheaper gallon of milk. I haven’t picked up the habit of driving for milk, and yet I do find myself announcing the price of gas to my husband when I get home. “I got gas for $3.09 today,” I announce proudly, as if I’ve just harvested a year’s worth of food. (Depending on where you live, and on your state and local gas taxes, your idea of inexpensive gas will vary.)
Certain things make us feel richer or poorer. Even if retirement funds are soaring, six dollars for orange juice is a shock. We think about our savings much less often than we think about the price of bread. The cost of paper towels has more emotional impact than a pronouncement from Washington that the economy is doing well.
According to economists, “many say we're in a "vibecession." Coined by Kyla Scanlon, the author of a Substack newsletter on economics, a vibecession refers to a disconnect between the economy of a country and the public's pessimistic perception of it. Or, as Scanlon put it, "The vibes of a recession, but maybe not the economic reality of one (yet)." Scanlon introduced the idea of a vibecession in June 2022.”
The gospel says the man who approached Jesus was “wealthy” and “had many possessions.” But did he know he was rich? Did he feel wealthy, or was Jesus’ instruction just one more assault on his pocketbook?
In the News
In the Washington Post, Karen Tumulty answered a reader’s question about the intersection of the economy and the election by noting, “The fact is, voters aren't moved by economic statistics, whether or not they are being lied to about them. They are moved by what they are feeling and seeing in their own lives. And what they are feeling right now is high prices. Yes, inflation has slowed, but prices still look stubbornly high to someone who has to pay their rent or go to the grocery store. And while the jobs picture is looking good, they aren't feeling like their paychecks are covering their cost of living. It often happens that public perceptions lag well behind actual economic performance. That may be the case now. But telling people they aren't hurting is not going to sway them.”
One “potential cause of shaky consumer confidence is the lingering sticker shock from the recent spike in inflation. The inflation rate is down from the highs of two years ago, but prices are not. Food prices are still 20% higher than they were three years ago — and gas prices are almost double.”
Economists say that the “vibecession” is ending, although ordinary people are still plenty mad about the cost of gas, bread, and housing. Curiously, economists, who are generally well paid by universities and think tanks, are missing the feelings of ordinary people. They are puzzled by the disconnect between positive economic numbers and people’s unhappiness about the economy. People who buy gas, bread, and orange juice weekly aren’t puzzled at all.
In the Scripture
All three synoptic gospels tell this story, and Mark, always sparing with details, tells us simply that this man is wealthy. We overlay the other gospel versions and imagine him as “the rich young ruler,” even though Mark has neither description. Some urgent hunger prompts him to run up to Jesus. This is interesting behavior for someone of means, who would typically send a messenger.
Jesus answers this man’s question with a list of the commandments that the man already knows. John Petty observes, though, that Jesus adds something. In his list, Jesus “included one that isn't actually in the commandments. It is "do not defraud" — me apostereses. This provision does not appear in any list of commandments, but does appear in Leviticus 19:13. The Hebrew word ashak means "to take advantage of, exploit, withhold something due." Another definition is "to take something from someone by means of deception or trickery." Do not cheat people out of their property, in other words. Most of the people of Galilee were poor and getting poorer…With the Roman conquest, and the increase in the power of the local aristocracy, even what little people had was being taken away. Sometimes, it was taxes that did them in…If people couldn't pay their onerous tax burden or their loans, their property could be taken. From the point of view of the common people, the rich and powerful had acquired their possessions often through deceit and trickery.”
The man insists that he has kept all of these commandments, and we’re meant to know that he’s an example of faith. Just not deep enough faith.
There are other people in this story who have given up all that they have — families, homes, regular income. Peter reminds Jesus that the disciples are a living example of what Jesus is asking for. It’s easy to see why they wouldn’t seem like a compelling example to this privileged man. By now, they must be shabby from travel, and they have no wealth or success to brag about. And yet, with all their flaws, they remain as an example for us, who also seek to follow Jesus. Looking at them, Jesus promises that what we think is success is really loss, and that the way we count people’s worth is all wrong.
In the Sermon
The sermon could explore the contrast between the disciples and this wealthy man. Many of us are closer to the wealthy man than to the disciples who have given up so much. Even when we feel poor, we have more of this man’s privilege than we believe.
The gospel writer takes the time to tell us that Jesus is setting out on a journey, and the sermon could delve into this idea. The wealthy man is also on a journey — one of reflection and self-examination. The end of Jesus’ journey is known to us, although not yet fully to the disciples. The end of the wealthy man’s journey is unknown. We never learn whether he can fully follow Jesus or whether he stays in the place of shock and grief. The sermon might examine the journey that we all are on, with regard to money and possessions. Are we seeking more? Living in poverty? Feeling squeezed even though we have money? Trying to shed possessions and live more simply?
The sermon might also talk about the idea of inheritance. This man wonders what he has to do to inherit eternal life, but an inheritance is given because of who we are, not what we do. What inheritance do we have from God, from the church, and from loved ones that we treasure? What parts of our inheritance do we not see? White privilege, gender privilege, education…what else? And do we have pieces of our inheritance we want to shed?
Jesus invites us on this journey, too, shedding what we have until we see what we really need. We feel poor right now, and Jesus invites us to see where we are also wealthy.
SECOND THOUGHTS
On Kids And Kidney Stones
by Dean Feldmeyer
Job 23:1-9, 16-17, Psalm 22:1-15, Amos 5:6-7, 10-15
Every few years I get a kidney stone. I’ve had maybe 30 in my life, and they are excruciatingly painful.
Experts on such things usually place kidney stones somewhere near the top of the list of the most painful things a person can suffer. Up there with burns and bone cancer and, yeah, childbirth.
Every time — yes — every time I get one my wife reminds me, “That’s what it’s like to give birth.” She’s not totally unsympathetic to my discomfort. She waits until after the stone has passed to say it, but she still says it: “That’s what it’s like to give birth.”
I nod humbly and dutifully because she and my mother have taught me that it is fruitless to argue with a woman when the issue has anything to do with childbirth.
But just between you and me, she’s wrong. Passing a kidney stone is nothing like giving birth.
There are dozens of reasons that this is so. For instance:
In the News
I was in Nevada a couple of months ago and the temperature was setting new records nearly every day. It was over 110 degrees and had been that high every day for more than a month, and people were working outdoors in that heat. Construction workers, city and county workers, cops, road crews, all kinds of people working so they could feed, clothe, and shelter themselves and their families. They could tolerate the heat because doing so had meaning.
To live without meaning is to live in a state of constant and intolerable chaos. To move through life without a sense of purpose is to exist without truly living. Without a sense of meaning, the discomforts, the problems, the pains, miseries, and suffering that life throws at us are all just kidney stones.
How, we might wonder, do the people in Gaza, Lebanon, and the West Bank find sufficient meaning in their suffering to keep going? Surrounded by meaningless death and destruction that is war, how do they keep going? How do they get out of bed every morning knowing that the day will, no doubt, bring only more suffering? When the laws of morality, civility, and decency have become irrevocably broken, what do you cling to that lets you keep putting one foot in front of the other?
The people in and around Ashville, North Carolina, are, as I write, living in a state of utter chaos. Their homes, their businesses and schools, indeed, their entire communities have been destroyed from flooding that no one could have predicted. They have lost friends and family members, washed away in muddy, violently roiling water moving with sufficient power to lift entire houses, uproot trees, and wash away bridges and homes. There is no meaning, no purpose to their suffering. There is only despair and occasionally a little defiant refusal to be driven out of their homes. But how do they keep going?
Where, they may ask, was God when the bombs were falling, or the waters were rising? The search for God in the midst of suffering is often the search for meaning that makes survival possible.
In the Scriptures
We need not rehearse the story of Job in detail. Everyone knows the basics. Indeed, the name Job has become synonymous with undeserved, unjust, misery and suffering. He has lost everything he values and loves and, if that is not enough, he has be tormented by his “friends,” insisting that it is all his fault. Driven to his wits’ end, he cries out, lifting his voice to the universe: Where is God?
He has looked for God, searched for God, called for God. If only God would answer, Job would plead his case like an attorney for the defense, demanding justice for his innocent client. Maybe God would see the state of things and declare Job not guilty. Or, at the very least, maybe God would explain things. Maybe God would show Job the meaning of his suffering.
Psalm 22 is maybe one of the top 10 most recognizable in the Psaltery — at least for Christians. It is this song, perhaps one he learned in his childhood, that Jesus cries out from the cross.
It’s the one that makes us most uncomfortable. Is it possible, we wonder, that Jesus actually felt abandoned and alone at the peak of his pain and torment, just moments from hid death? Surely not! No, there must be some other explanation.
But is there? Isn’t it possible that Jesus, like us, needed reassurance that there was some meaning in his suffering, that it wasn’t all for nothing?
Amos does not encourage us to seek the Lord so we will find meaning in our suffering. Rather, he warns that we should seek the Lord through righteous living and only then will our lives, no matter what direction they take, find true meaning.
In The Sermon
Often, when Christians talk about suffering, they come up empty, so they fall back on vapid banalities, old bromides, meaningless platitudes, and worn out cliches.
“We have to trust that God knows what he’s doing.”
“God never gives us more than we can handle.”
“God’s using this to make me a better person.”
All this as though the holocaust never happened, the killing fields of Cambodia were a myth, and the hundreds of thousands of deaths and the untold suffering of hundreds of thousands from wars and natural disasters were just a bad dream.
Psychologist Viktor Frankl, the author of Man’s Search for Meaning, takes a different track that begins with acknowledging and accepting the fact that there is such a thing as unjust suffering in the world.
He would know. He lived for three years in the Nazi concentration camp, Auschwitz.
The core of Frankl’s philosophy is that a person’s deepest desire is to find meaning in their life, and if they can find that meaning, they can survive anything. Frankl found meaning in his experiences in the concentration camp by deciding that he was going to use his suffering as an opportunity to make himself a better person. Instead of becoming apathetic and accepting that he was doomed, he chose to embrace his suffering. According to Frankl, while our destiny in life is certainly affected by the circumstances in which we find ourselves, we are ultimately free to choose our own path in life. Even in the worst possible situation, we always have the freedom to choose our attitude toward life.
There are, Frankl offers, three ways to find meaning in life: through work, through love, and through suffering. Frankl kept his desire for meaning alive through his three years in the camps by focusing on the potential meanings he could create for himself. In addition to finding meaning in his suffering, Frankl motivated himself by thinking about the work he wanted to do after leaving camp. He also found hope in love, as the image of his wife helped him through many of his most difficult times.
Frankl was able to use his work, love, and suffering to keep himself alive because he felt that he was responsible for and to them.
As an example, the preacher might lift up the fact that Frankl, himself, went on to write a best seller that helped millions of people deal with their own suffering even as he worked as a therapist to help patients. We might also talk about such people as Christopher Reeve, who, after playing Superman in the movies was paralyzed in and accident but went on to become an advocate for people with spinal injuries, raising millions of dollars toward finding new methods for treating the condition.
God doesn’t impose suffering upon us for the purpose of making us into better human beings. Rather, God has made us so we can, if we choose, use the suffering we experience as a catalyst in the process of becoming better human beings, a process that is seasoned with love and work.
ILLUSTRATIONS
From team member Tom Willadsen:
Mark 10:17-31
Don’t be stingy
There are a number passages against being stingy and also against stingy people in scripture. For example, Proverbs 23:6 “Do not eat with people who are stingy; do not desire their delicacies.” (New Living Translation)
While it is not explicit, the text implies that the stingy will begrudge giving their food away. They will “keep score” and want to be paid back for generosity or hospitality.
A pithier way to make the same point — which I remember Brer Rabbit uttering, though 15 minutes on the internet didn’t verify that — is, “The Lord don’t love no stingy man!”
* * *
Mark 10:17-31
About the camel and the eye of a needle
In “All This Time,” a hit song by Sting, from the album “The Soul Cages” is this verse:
Blessed are the poor, for they shall inherit the earth
Better to be poor than be a fat man in the eye of a needle
As these words were spoken, I swear I hear the old man laughing
What good is a used up world and how could it be worth having?
Sting conflates a couple images from the gospels. Jesus does indeed say “The meek shall inherit the earth,” in Matthew 5:5 (NRSV). There is no mention of a fat man in the eye of a needle. The eye of the needle image comes from today’s gospel reading: “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” (Mark 10:25, NRSV).
And no, there is no narrow “Eye of the Needle” gate in Jerusalem, that’s a medieval legend. Jesus’ point is that no one can get into the kingdom of heaven / presence of God on their own. There is a Talmudic legend that uses the image of an elephant going through (not) the eye of a needle.
* * *
Hebrews 4:12-16
Soul from Spirit
The sharp, double-edged sword mentioned in v. 12 is able to separate “soul from spirit.” This may be an allusion to Proverbs 20:27:
The human spirit is the lamp of the Lord,
searching every inmost part.
This powerful sword, the word of God, is so sharp it is able to separate seemingly indivisible things.
* * *
Hebrews 4:12-16
Jesus’ sinlessness
The book of Hebrews (it isn’t exactly an epistle, in my opinion, maybe think of it as an essay, rather than a book) emphasizes Jesus’ sinlessness more than any other writing.
2 Corinthians 5:21 mentions it: “For our sake God made the one who knew no sin to be sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”
As does 1 Peter 2:22 “He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth.” This verse is an allusion to Isaiah 53:9.
1 John 3:5 “You know that he was revealed to take away sins, and in him there is no sin.” This makes the same point.
Some atonement theology contends that Jesus needed to be without sin for his sacrifice on the cross to be effective in removing the sin of everyone else.
* * * * * *
From team member Chris Keating:
Job 23:1-9, 16-17
Persisting in integrity
“If you live in Gaza, you die several times,” writes poet Mosab Abu Toha in a new collection of poetry entitled, Forest of Noise: Poems (to be released October 15, 2024). Toha was interviewed on the one-year anniversary of the Hamas attack on Israel. “If you live in Gaza, you die several times because you could have died in an air strike, but only luck saved you. Also, having lost so many family members is a death for you. And losing your hope.”
In his poem, “My Son Throws a Blanket Over his Sister,” Toha writes:
Our backs bang at the walls
whenever the house shakes.
We stare at each other’s faces,
scared, yet happy
that so far, our lives have been spared.
* * *
Job 23:1-9, 16-17
Where can I find God?
Job’s search for meaning in this reading sounds like the mirror opposite of Psalm 139. Contrary to the psalmist’s positive acclamation (“Where can I go from your Spirit?” Psalm 139:7), Job’s searching for God is fruitless. “Oh, that I knew where to find (God),” he cries in chapter 23:3, adding “if I go forward, (God) is not there; or backward, I cannot perceive (God)” in 23:8.
The late Henri Nouwen, whose own life was marked by periods of depression, suffering, and loneliness, urged those experiencing suffering to search for God by remaining still. Instead of a frenetic, fast-paced search for faith, Nouwen suggests standing calmly in the assurance one is “deeply loved by God.” Nouwen remarks that:
Suffering is a period in your life in which true faith can emerge, a naked faith, a faith that comes to life in the midst of great pain. The grain, indeed, has to die in order to bear fruit and when you dare to stand in your suffering, your life will bear fruit in ways that are far beyond your own predications or understanding. . . . Spend some time each morning doing nothing but simply sitting in the presence of God and saying the Jesus Prayer. Gradually, God will enter your heart in a new way and bring new light into your struggle.
* * *
Job 23:1-9, 16-17
Our search for meaning
The great Viennese psychotherapist Viktor Frankl, whom Dean Feldmeyer mentions in his piece this week, drew on his experiences of being held in a Nazi death camp during World War II in developing his understanding of transcending extreme suffering. His reflections led to the development of his understanding of “logotherapy” as a therapeutic technique. His book, Man’s Search for Meaning was first published in 1946 for a limited audience. It has continued to be in print and has since been translated into 24 languages. In part one of the book, Frankl describes his concentration camp experiences and begins unpacking their significance to him:
... In spite of all the enforced physical and mental primitiveness of the life in a concentration camp, it was possible for spiritual life to deepen. Sensitive people who were used to a rich intellectual life may have suffered much pain (they were often of a delicate constitution), but the damage to their inner selves was less. They were able to retreat from their terrible surroundings to a life of inner riches and spiritual freedom. Only in this way can one explain the apparent paradox that some prisoners of a less hardy makeup often seemed to survive camp life better than did those of a robust nature.
Forced to march for miles, Frankl was sustained by a whispered comment from another prisoner. “If our wives could see us now,” the prisoner said to him. “I hope they are better off in their camps and don’t know what is happening to us.” That insight, wrote Frankl, sparked his imagination as they continued stumbling over miles and miles of stones. Nothing was said, he wrote, “but we both knew: each of us was thinking of his wife. Occasionally I looked at the sky, where the stars were fading, and the pink light of the morning was beginning to spread behind a dark bank of clouds. But my mind clung to my wife's image, imagining it with an uncanny acuteness. I heard her answering me, saw her smile, her frank and encouraging look. Real or not, her look was then more luminous than the sun which was beginning to rise.” (Quoted from pbs.org/wgbh/questionofGod.)
* * *
Mark 10:17-31
Our “bad” economy
Quick, someone go ask Elon Musk if he’s better off today than he was four years ago. Turns out the past four years have been pretty good for the billionaire. In March, 2020, Musk was worth a paltry $25 billion. In two years, that soared to $255 billion before dropping back to “only” $188.5 billion in March, 2024. His net increase was a seven-fold increase in just four years.
Elon was in good company. Four years ago, Forbes magazine reported that there were “just” 614 billionaires in the United States with a combined wealth of $2.5 trillion. Post-Covid, those numbers have increased drastically by a whopping 87 percent increase. Forbes now reports that there are 737 U.S. billionaires with a total wealth of around $5.29 trillion.
By way of comparison, it is estimated that Americans hold an excess of more than $220 billion in debt, with the disproportionate amount owed by people with low incomes or disabilities.
And Jesus said, “go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me."
* * *
Mark 10:17-31
Meanwhile, the poor get sicker
There is a well-documented connection between ill-health and poverty. A study published in April, 2024 noted the ways sickness interferes with the acquisition, utilization, and retention of human capital by “forcing the painful sacrifice of basic necessities” to afford healthcare. Sudden changes in health can reduce work capacity and quickly push household incomes below the poverty-level. The authors noted:
Without adequate health insurance or access to public healthcare with little or no user charges, ill-health can also cause poverty through out-of-pocket spending on healthcare that leaves insufficient household resources to reach a decent — subsistence, even — standard of living. Risk-related health insurance premiums may impoverish the chronically ill.
* * *
Mark 10:17-31
The vibecession
Many Americans might resonate with the rich man’s frustration. While the text tells us he was wealthy, perhaps he didn’t feel so well off. Surveys show that about 75% of Americans are not happy with the state of the economy — even though US unemployment is about 4.1%, inflation is at a three-year low, wages are up, and the stock market continues to set records.
One economist says that the uneasy feeling over the economy is appropriate. “Just because the economy hasn't landed in a recession doesn't mean that folks should necessarily feel great about it,” said Brett House, economics professor at Columbia University. “We had a big increase in the cost of living on the order of about 20% over a few years.”
Others note that consumer confidence seems to be growing, albeit slowly. Data from the University of Michigan showed consumer confidence has grown ever so slightly over the summer.
* * * * * *
WORSHIP
by George Reed
Call to Worship
One: So teach us to count our days that we may gain a wise heart.
All: Have compassion on your servants!
One: Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love,
All: so that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.
One: Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us.
All: Prosper for us the work of our hands!
OR
One: Come to the God who holds all creation in loving care.
All: We come seeking goodness and meaning.
One: All that we need is offered to us by our God.
All: We rejoice in God’s gracious gifts of love.
One: All God’s gifts are given to be enjoyed and shared.
All: With thanksgiving we will share God’s bounty.
Hymns and Songs
O God, Our Help in Ages Past
UMH: 117
H82: 680
AAHH: 170
NNBH: 46
NCH: 25
CH: 67
LBW: 320
ELW: 632
W&P: 84
AMEC: 61
STLT: 281
For the Beauty of the Earth
UMH: 92
H82: 416
PH: 473
GTG: 14
NNBH: 8
NCH: 28
CH: 56
LBW: 561
ELW: 879
W&P: 40
AMEC: 578
STLT: 21
God of the Sparrow God of the Whale
UMH: 122
PH: 272
GTG: 22
NCH: 32
CH: 70
ELW: 740
W&P: 29
Out of the Depths I Cry to You
UMH: 515
H82: 666
PH: 240
GTG: 424
NCH: 483
CH: 510
LBW: 295
ELW: 600
By Gracious Powers
UMH: 517
H82: 695/696
PH: 342
GTG: 818
NCH: 413
ELW: 626
W&P: 75
Come, Ye Disconsolate
UMH: 510
AAHH: 421
NNBH: 264
CH: 502
ELW: 607
AMEC: 227
Take My Life, and Let It Be
UMH: 399
H82: 707
PH: 391
GTG: 697
NNBH: 213
NCH: 448
CH: 609
LBW: 406
ELW: 583/685
W&P: 466
AMEC: 292
Renew: 150
Seek Ye First
UMH: 405
H82: 711
PH: 333
GTG: 175
CH: 354
W&P: 349
CCB: 76
I Need Thee Every Hour
UMH: 397
GTG: 735
AAHH: 451
NNBH: 303
NCH: 517
CH: 578
W&P: 476
AMEC: 327
Turn You Eyes Upon Jesus
UMH: 349
NNBH: 195
ELW: 284
W&P: 472
CCB: 55
Your Loving Kindness Is Better than Life
CCB: 26
All I Need Is You
CCB: 100
Music Resources Key
UMH: United Methodist Hymnal
H82: The Hymnal 1982
PH: Presbyterian Hymnal
GTG: Glory to God, The 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
ELW: Evangelical Lutheran Worship
W&P: Worship & Praise
AMEC: African Methodist Episcopal Church Hymnal
STLT: Singing the Living Tradition
CCB: Cokesbury Chorus Book
Renew: Renew! Songs & Hymns for Blended Worship
Prayer for the Day/Collect
O God who is the source of all meaning and security:
Grant us the wisdom to seek all we need from you
so that the turbulence of the world does not undo us;
through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.
OR
We praise you, O God, because you are the source of all meaning and of all true security. It is in you alone that we live and move and have our being. Help us to look to you for all we need. Amen.
Prayer of Confession
One: Let us confess to God and before one another our sins and especially when we confuse the gift of creation for the wisdom and security of the creator.
All: We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. We look at the wonder of creation and we think that to possess it is to possess all that we need. We fail to see it as the gift that it is and instead see it as the very meaning of our lives. We try to amass all that we can so that we can feel secure. We look to your gifts for the meaning in our lives instead of finding it in you. Forgive us our short-sighted ways and restore us to our right minds. Help us find in you our meaning and our security. Amen.
One: God is our all in all and the eternal one who holds all. Receive God’s gracious gifts and mercy and center your life in the one who holds it.
Prayers of the People
Praise and glory to you, O God who is the very foundation of our being. You are the Rock on which we stand and build our lives.
(The following paragraph may be used if a separate prayer of confession has not been used.)
We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. We look at the wonder of creation and we think that to possess it is to possess all that we need. We fail to see it as the gift that it is and instead see it as the very meaning of our lives. We try to amass all that we can so that we can feel secure. We look to your gifts for the meaning in our lives instead of finding it in you. Forgive us our short-sighted ways and restore us to our right minds. Help us find in you our meaning and our security.
We give you thanks for all the goodness you have created for us. We thank you for all the signs that you love us and care for us. We are grateful that you have created us in your image and filled us with your Spirit that we may know you and love you. Those who have shared the good news with us are our blessing.
(Other thanksgivings may be offered.)
We pray for one another in our need. We lift up those who struggle to find meaning in their lives. Our hearts go out to those who strive to amass the things of this world in order to find a sense of meaning. We pray for those who have been hurt by those who think greed will make them great.
(Other intercessions may be offered.)
Hear us as we pray for others: (Time for silent or spoken prayer.)
All these things we ask in the name of our Savior Jesus Christ who taught us to pray saying:
Our Father....Amen.
(Or if the Our Father 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
Love God, Not Things
by Katy Stenta
Mark 10:17-31
Jesus often likes to answer questions with questions, or with riddles.
It was hard to get an easy answer from Jesus. You had to think about his answers.
So when a rich man came and asked how to get into heaven, Jesus told him to sell all of his possessions. A fairly striaghforward answer from Jesus, but a hard one.
How do you think it made that rich man feel that Jesus said to get rid of all of his possessions? (Give time for an answer, but it is okay if no one does.)
The Bible said he was sad because he owned so many things and didn't want to get rid of them.
Jesus then says it is easier that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to get into heaven.
This is a tricky riddle and it confuses everyone.
Then, Jesus says that anyone who has followed Jesus will receive a hundredfold of what they left and come to eternal life. He says the first will be last and the last will be first.
All of this is confusing as well, but the way Jesus’ ministry seems to work is that Jesus values things differently than other humans. Jesus says that it is our job is to love and serve God and not worry about possessions and being rich.
That last part, at least, is not confusing.
Let’s pray:
Dear God,
Sometimes life
Is confusing
And it’s hard
To know
What
We should
Value.
Thank you
For reminding
Us
To always
Remember
That love
Is the most
Important thing
in our lives.
Amen.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Immediate Word, October 13, 2024 issue.
Copyright 2024 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.
- Wealthy People Vibes by Mary Austin based on Mark 10:17-31.
- Second Thoughts: On Kids And Kidney Stones by Dean Feldmeyer based on Job 23:1-9, 16-17, Psalm 22:1-15, and Amos 5:6-7, 10-15.
- Sermon illustrations by Tom Willadsen, Chris Keating.
- Worship resources by George Reed.
- Children's sermon: Love God, Not Things by Katy Stenta based on Mark 10:17-31.
Wealthy People Vibesby Mary Austin
Mark 10:17-31
As a kid, I could never figure out why my parents talked about gas prices all the time, or drove across town to get a cheaper gallon of milk. I haven’t picked up the habit of driving for milk, and yet I do find myself announcing the price of gas to my husband when I get home. “I got gas for $3.09 today,” I announce proudly, as if I’ve just harvested a year’s worth of food. (Depending on where you live, and on your state and local gas taxes, your idea of inexpensive gas will vary.)
Certain things make us feel richer or poorer. Even if retirement funds are soaring, six dollars for orange juice is a shock. We think about our savings much less often than we think about the price of bread. The cost of paper towels has more emotional impact than a pronouncement from Washington that the economy is doing well.
According to economists, “many say we're in a "vibecession." Coined by Kyla Scanlon, the author of a Substack newsletter on economics, a vibecession refers to a disconnect between the economy of a country and the public's pessimistic perception of it. Or, as Scanlon put it, "The vibes of a recession, but maybe not the economic reality of one (yet)." Scanlon introduced the idea of a vibecession in June 2022.”
The gospel says the man who approached Jesus was “wealthy” and “had many possessions.” But did he know he was rich? Did he feel wealthy, or was Jesus’ instruction just one more assault on his pocketbook?
In the News
In the Washington Post, Karen Tumulty answered a reader’s question about the intersection of the economy and the election by noting, “The fact is, voters aren't moved by economic statistics, whether or not they are being lied to about them. They are moved by what they are feeling and seeing in their own lives. And what they are feeling right now is high prices. Yes, inflation has slowed, but prices still look stubbornly high to someone who has to pay their rent or go to the grocery store. And while the jobs picture is looking good, they aren't feeling like their paychecks are covering their cost of living. It often happens that public perceptions lag well behind actual economic performance. That may be the case now. But telling people they aren't hurting is not going to sway them.”
One “potential cause of shaky consumer confidence is the lingering sticker shock from the recent spike in inflation. The inflation rate is down from the highs of two years ago, but prices are not. Food prices are still 20% higher than they were three years ago — and gas prices are almost double.”
Economists say that the “vibecession” is ending, although ordinary people are still plenty mad about the cost of gas, bread, and housing. Curiously, economists, who are generally well paid by universities and think tanks, are missing the feelings of ordinary people. They are puzzled by the disconnect between positive economic numbers and people’s unhappiness about the economy. People who buy gas, bread, and orange juice weekly aren’t puzzled at all.
In the Scripture
All three synoptic gospels tell this story, and Mark, always sparing with details, tells us simply that this man is wealthy. We overlay the other gospel versions and imagine him as “the rich young ruler,” even though Mark has neither description. Some urgent hunger prompts him to run up to Jesus. This is interesting behavior for someone of means, who would typically send a messenger.
Jesus answers this man’s question with a list of the commandments that the man already knows. John Petty observes, though, that Jesus adds something. In his list, Jesus “included one that isn't actually in the commandments. It is "do not defraud" — me apostereses. This provision does not appear in any list of commandments, but does appear in Leviticus 19:13. The Hebrew word ashak means "to take advantage of, exploit, withhold something due." Another definition is "to take something from someone by means of deception or trickery." Do not cheat people out of their property, in other words. Most of the people of Galilee were poor and getting poorer…With the Roman conquest, and the increase in the power of the local aristocracy, even what little people had was being taken away. Sometimes, it was taxes that did them in…If people couldn't pay their onerous tax burden or their loans, their property could be taken. From the point of view of the common people, the rich and powerful had acquired their possessions often through deceit and trickery.”
The man insists that he has kept all of these commandments, and we’re meant to know that he’s an example of faith. Just not deep enough faith.
There are other people in this story who have given up all that they have — families, homes, regular income. Peter reminds Jesus that the disciples are a living example of what Jesus is asking for. It’s easy to see why they wouldn’t seem like a compelling example to this privileged man. By now, they must be shabby from travel, and they have no wealth or success to brag about. And yet, with all their flaws, they remain as an example for us, who also seek to follow Jesus. Looking at them, Jesus promises that what we think is success is really loss, and that the way we count people’s worth is all wrong.
In the Sermon
The sermon could explore the contrast between the disciples and this wealthy man. Many of us are closer to the wealthy man than to the disciples who have given up so much. Even when we feel poor, we have more of this man’s privilege than we believe.
The gospel writer takes the time to tell us that Jesus is setting out on a journey, and the sermon could delve into this idea. The wealthy man is also on a journey — one of reflection and self-examination. The end of Jesus’ journey is known to us, although not yet fully to the disciples. The end of the wealthy man’s journey is unknown. We never learn whether he can fully follow Jesus or whether he stays in the place of shock and grief. The sermon might examine the journey that we all are on, with regard to money and possessions. Are we seeking more? Living in poverty? Feeling squeezed even though we have money? Trying to shed possessions and live more simply?
The sermon might also talk about the idea of inheritance. This man wonders what he has to do to inherit eternal life, but an inheritance is given because of who we are, not what we do. What inheritance do we have from God, from the church, and from loved ones that we treasure? What parts of our inheritance do we not see? White privilege, gender privilege, education…what else? And do we have pieces of our inheritance we want to shed?
Jesus invites us on this journey, too, shedding what we have until we see what we really need. We feel poor right now, and Jesus invites us to see where we are also wealthy.
SECOND THOUGHTSOn Kids And Kidney Stones
by Dean Feldmeyer
Job 23:1-9, 16-17, Psalm 22:1-15, Amos 5:6-7, 10-15
Every few years I get a kidney stone. I’ve had maybe 30 in my life, and they are excruciatingly painful.
Experts on such things usually place kidney stones somewhere near the top of the list of the most painful things a person can suffer. Up there with burns and bone cancer and, yeah, childbirth.
Every time — yes — every time I get one my wife reminds me, “That’s what it’s like to give birth.” She’s not totally unsympathetic to my discomfort. She waits until after the stone has passed to say it, but she still says it: “That’s what it’s like to give birth.”
I nod humbly and dutifully because she and my mother have taught me that it is fruitless to argue with a woman when the issue has anything to do with childbirth.
But just between you and me, she’s wrong. Passing a kidney stone is nothing like giving birth.
There are dozens of reasons that this is so. For instance:
- A woman can choose whether to have a child. I do not get to choose whether or not to have a kidney stone.
- The end product of the kidney stone process is a tiny little blob of calcium that I flush down the toilet and am happy to never see again. The end product of childbirth is, well, a child that is so wonderful and precious that I’ll start bawling if I think about it for too long.
- The specific children she’s referring to have my eyes and nose. The kidney stones…don’t.
- If I could choose, I would never have another kidney stone, ever. My wife, on the other hand, went through childbirth once and then, a couple of years later, chose to go through it again.
In the News
I was in Nevada a couple of months ago and the temperature was setting new records nearly every day. It was over 110 degrees and had been that high every day for more than a month, and people were working outdoors in that heat. Construction workers, city and county workers, cops, road crews, all kinds of people working so they could feed, clothe, and shelter themselves and their families. They could tolerate the heat because doing so had meaning.
To live without meaning is to live in a state of constant and intolerable chaos. To move through life without a sense of purpose is to exist without truly living. Without a sense of meaning, the discomforts, the problems, the pains, miseries, and suffering that life throws at us are all just kidney stones.
How, we might wonder, do the people in Gaza, Lebanon, and the West Bank find sufficient meaning in their suffering to keep going? Surrounded by meaningless death and destruction that is war, how do they keep going? How do they get out of bed every morning knowing that the day will, no doubt, bring only more suffering? When the laws of morality, civility, and decency have become irrevocably broken, what do you cling to that lets you keep putting one foot in front of the other?
The people in and around Ashville, North Carolina, are, as I write, living in a state of utter chaos. Their homes, their businesses and schools, indeed, their entire communities have been destroyed from flooding that no one could have predicted. They have lost friends and family members, washed away in muddy, violently roiling water moving with sufficient power to lift entire houses, uproot trees, and wash away bridges and homes. There is no meaning, no purpose to their suffering. There is only despair and occasionally a little defiant refusal to be driven out of their homes. But how do they keep going?
Where, they may ask, was God when the bombs were falling, or the waters were rising? The search for God in the midst of suffering is often the search for meaning that makes survival possible.
In the Scriptures
We need not rehearse the story of Job in detail. Everyone knows the basics. Indeed, the name Job has become synonymous with undeserved, unjust, misery and suffering. He has lost everything he values and loves and, if that is not enough, he has be tormented by his “friends,” insisting that it is all his fault. Driven to his wits’ end, he cries out, lifting his voice to the universe: Where is God?
He has looked for God, searched for God, called for God. If only God would answer, Job would plead his case like an attorney for the defense, demanding justice for his innocent client. Maybe God would see the state of things and declare Job not guilty. Or, at the very least, maybe God would explain things. Maybe God would show Job the meaning of his suffering.
Psalm 22 is maybe one of the top 10 most recognizable in the Psaltery — at least for Christians. It is this song, perhaps one he learned in his childhood, that Jesus cries out from the cross.
It’s the one that makes us most uncomfortable. Is it possible, we wonder, that Jesus actually felt abandoned and alone at the peak of his pain and torment, just moments from hid death? Surely not! No, there must be some other explanation.
But is there? Isn’t it possible that Jesus, like us, needed reassurance that there was some meaning in his suffering, that it wasn’t all for nothing?
Amos does not encourage us to seek the Lord so we will find meaning in our suffering. Rather, he warns that we should seek the Lord through righteous living and only then will our lives, no matter what direction they take, find true meaning.
In The Sermon
Often, when Christians talk about suffering, they come up empty, so they fall back on vapid banalities, old bromides, meaningless platitudes, and worn out cliches.
“We have to trust that God knows what he’s doing.”
“God never gives us more than we can handle.”
“God’s using this to make me a better person.”
All this as though the holocaust never happened, the killing fields of Cambodia were a myth, and the hundreds of thousands of deaths and the untold suffering of hundreds of thousands from wars and natural disasters were just a bad dream.
Psychologist Viktor Frankl, the author of Man’s Search for Meaning, takes a different track that begins with acknowledging and accepting the fact that there is such a thing as unjust suffering in the world.
He would know. He lived for three years in the Nazi concentration camp, Auschwitz.
The core of Frankl’s philosophy is that a person’s deepest desire is to find meaning in their life, and if they can find that meaning, they can survive anything. Frankl found meaning in his experiences in the concentration camp by deciding that he was going to use his suffering as an opportunity to make himself a better person. Instead of becoming apathetic and accepting that he was doomed, he chose to embrace his suffering. According to Frankl, while our destiny in life is certainly affected by the circumstances in which we find ourselves, we are ultimately free to choose our own path in life. Even in the worst possible situation, we always have the freedom to choose our attitude toward life.
There are, Frankl offers, three ways to find meaning in life: through work, through love, and through suffering. Frankl kept his desire for meaning alive through his three years in the camps by focusing on the potential meanings he could create for himself. In addition to finding meaning in his suffering, Frankl motivated himself by thinking about the work he wanted to do after leaving camp. He also found hope in love, as the image of his wife helped him through many of his most difficult times.
Frankl was able to use his work, love, and suffering to keep himself alive because he felt that he was responsible for and to them.
As an example, the preacher might lift up the fact that Frankl, himself, went on to write a best seller that helped millions of people deal with their own suffering even as he worked as a therapist to help patients. We might also talk about such people as Christopher Reeve, who, after playing Superman in the movies was paralyzed in and accident but went on to become an advocate for people with spinal injuries, raising millions of dollars toward finding new methods for treating the condition.
God doesn’t impose suffering upon us for the purpose of making us into better human beings. Rather, God has made us so we can, if we choose, use the suffering we experience as a catalyst in the process of becoming better human beings, a process that is seasoned with love and work.
ILLUSTRATIONS
From team member Tom Willadsen:Mark 10:17-31
Don’t be stingy
There are a number passages against being stingy and also against stingy people in scripture. For example, Proverbs 23:6 “Do not eat with people who are stingy; do not desire their delicacies.” (New Living Translation)
While it is not explicit, the text implies that the stingy will begrudge giving their food away. They will “keep score” and want to be paid back for generosity or hospitality.
A pithier way to make the same point — which I remember Brer Rabbit uttering, though 15 minutes on the internet didn’t verify that — is, “The Lord don’t love no stingy man!”
* * *
Mark 10:17-31
About the camel and the eye of a needle
In “All This Time,” a hit song by Sting, from the album “The Soul Cages” is this verse:
Blessed are the poor, for they shall inherit the earth
Better to be poor than be a fat man in the eye of a needle
As these words were spoken, I swear I hear the old man laughing
What good is a used up world and how could it be worth having?
Sting conflates a couple images from the gospels. Jesus does indeed say “The meek shall inherit the earth,” in Matthew 5:5 (NRSV). There is no mention of a fat man in the eye of a needle. The eye of the needle image comes from today’s gospel reading: “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” (Mark 10:25, NRSV).
And no, there is no narrow “Eye of the Needle” gate in Jerusalem, that’s a medieval legend. Jesus’ point is that no one can get into the kingdom of heaven / presence of God on their own. There is a Talmudic legend that uses the image of an elephant going through (not) the eye of a needle.
* * *
Hebrews 4:12-16
Soul from Spirit
The sharp, double-edged sword mentioned in v. 12 is able to separate “soul from spirit.” This may be an allusion to Proverbs 20:27:
The human spirit is the lamp of the Lord,
searching every inmost part.
This powerful sword, the word of God, is so sharp it is able to separate seemingly indivisible things.
* * *
Hebrews 4:12-16
Jesus’ sinlessness
The book of Hebrews (it isn’t exactly an epistle, in my opinion, maybe think of it as an essay, rather than a book) emphasizes Jesus’ sinlessness more than any other writing.
2 Corinthians 5:21 mentions it: “For our sake God made the one who knew no sin to be sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”
As does 1 Peter 2:22 “He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth.” This verse is an allusion to Isaiah 53:9.
1 John 3:5 “You know that he was revealed to take away sins, and in him there is no sin.” This makes the same point.
Some atonement theology contends that Jesus needed to be without sin for his sacrifice on the cross to be effective in removing the sin of everyone else.
* * * * * *
From team member Chris Keating:Job 23:1-9, 16-17
Persisting in integrity
“If you live in Gaza, you die several times,” writes poet Mosab Abu Toha in a new collection of poetry entitled, Forest of Noise: Poems (to be released October 15, 2024). Toha was interviewed on the one-year anniversary of the Hamas attack on Israel. “If you live in Gaza, you die several times because you could have died in an air strike, but only luck saved you. Also, having lost so many family members is a death for you. And losing your hope.”
In his poem, “My Son Throws a Blanket Over his Sister,” Toha writes:
Our backs bang at the walls
whenever the house shakes.
We stare at each other’s faces,
scared, yet happy
that so far, our lives have been spared.
* * *
Job 23:1-9, 16-17
Where can I find God?
Job’s search for meaning in this reading sounds like the mirror opposite of Psalm 139. Contrary to the psalmist’s positive acclamation (“Where can I go from your Spirit?” Psalm 139:7), Job’s searching for God is fruitless. “Oh, that I knew where to find (God),” he cries in chapter 23:3, adding “if I go forward, (God) is not there; or backward, I cannot perceive (God)” in 23:8.
The late Henri Nouwen, whose own life was marked by periods of depression, suffering, and loneliness, urged those experiencing suffering to search for God by remaining still. Instead of a frenetic, fast-paced search for faith, Nouwen suggests standing calmly in the assurance one is “deeply loved by God.” Nouwen remarks that:
Suffering is a period in your life in which true faith can emerge, a naked faith, a faith that comes to life in the midst of great pain. The grain, indeed, has to die in order to bear fruit and when you dare to stand in your suffering, your life will bear fruit in ways that are far beyond your own predications or understanding. . . . Spend some time each morning doing nothing but simply sitting in the presence of God and saying the Jesus Prayer. Gradually, God will enter your heart in a new way and bring new light into your struggle.
* * *
Job 23:1-9, 16-17
Our search for meaning
The great Viennese psychotherapist Viktor Frankl, whom Dean Feldmeyer mentions in his piece this week, drew on his experiences of being held in a Nazi death camp during World War II in developing his understanding of transcending extreme suffering. His reflections led to the development of his understanding of “logotherapy” as a therapeutic technique. His book, Man’s Search for Meaning was first published in 1946 for a limited audience. It has continued to be in print and has since been translated into 24 languages. In part one of the book, Frankl describes his concentration camp experiences and begins unpacking their significance to him:
... In spite of all the enforced physical and mental primitiveness of the life in a concentration camp, it was possible for spiritual life to deepen. Sensitive people who were used to a rich intellectual life may have suffered much pain (they were often of a delicate constitution), but the damage to their inner selves was less. They were able to retreat from their terrible surroundings to a life of inner riches and spiritual freedom. Only in this way can one explain the apparent paradox that some prisoners of a less hardy makeup often seemed to survive camp life better than did those of a robust nature.
Forced to march for miles, Frankl was sustained by a whispered comment from another prisoner. “If our wives could see us now,” the prisoner said to him. “I hope they are better off in their camps and don’t know what is happening to us.” That insight, wrote Frankl, sparked his imagination as they continued stumbling over miles and miles of stones. Nothing was said, he wrote, “but we both knew: each of us was thinking of his wife. Occasionally I looked at the sky, where the stars were fading, and the pink light of the morning was beginning to spread behind a dark bank of clouds. But my mind clung to my wife's image, imagining it with an uncanny acuteness. I heard her answering me, saw her smile, her frank and encouraging look. Real or not, her look was then more luminous than the sun which was beginning to rise.” (Quoted from pbs.org/wgbh/questionofGod.)
* * *
Mark 10:17-31
Our “bad” economy
Quick, someone go ask Elon Musk if he’s better off today than he was four years ago. Turns out the past four years have been pretty good for the billionaire. In March, 2020, Musk was worth a paltry $25 billion. In two years, that soared to $255 billion before dropping back to “only” $188.5 billion in March, 2024. His net increase was a seven-fold increase in just four years.
Elon was in good company. Four years ago, Forbes magazine reported that there were “just” 614 billionaires in the United States with a combined wealth of $2.5 trillion. Post-Covid, those numbers have increased drastically by a whopping 87 percent increase. Forbes now reports that there are 737 U.S. billionaires with a total wealth of around $5.29 trillion.
By way of comparison, it is estimated that Americans hold an excess of more than $220 billion in debt, with the disproportionate amount owed by people with low incomes or disabilities.
And Jesus said, “go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me."
* * *
Mark 10:17-31
Meanwhile, the poor get sicker
There is a well-documented connection between ill-health and poverty. A study published in April, 2024 noted the ways sickness interferes with the acquisition, utilization, and retention of human capital by “forcing the painful sacrifice of basic necessities” to afford healthcare. Sudden changes in health can reduce work capacity and quickly push household incomes below the poverty-level. The authors noted:
Without adequate health insurance or access to public healthcare with little or no user charges, ill-health can also cause poverty through out-of-pocket spending on healthcare that leaves insufficient household resources to reach a decent — subsistence, even — standard of living. Risk-related health insurance premiums may impoverish the chronically ill.
* * *
Mark 10:17-31
The vibecession
Many Americans might resonate with the rich man’s frustration. While the text tells us he was wealthy, perhaps he didn’t feel so well off. Surveys show that about 75% of Americans are not happy with the state of the economy — even though US unemployment is about 4.1%, inflation is at a three-year low, wages are up, and the stock market continues to set records.
One economist says that the uneasy feeling over the economy is appropriate. “Just because the economy hasn't landed in a recession doesn't mean that folks should necessarily feel great about it,” said Brett House, economics professor at Columbia University. “We had a big increase in the cost of living on the order of about 20% over a few years.”
Others note that consumer confidence seems to be growing, albeit slowly. Data from the University of Michigan showed consumer confidence has grown ever so slightly over the summer.
* * * * * *
WORSHIPby George Reed
Call to Worship
One: So teach us to count our days that we may gain a wise heart.
All: Have compassion on your servants!
One: Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love,
All: so that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.
One: Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us.
All: Prosper for us the work of our hands!
OR
One: Come to the God who holds all creation in loving care.
All: We come seeking goodness and meaning.
One: All that we need is offered to us by our God.
All: We rejoice in God’s gracious gifts of love.
One: All God’s gifts are given to be enjoyed and shared.
All: With thanksgiving we will share God’s bounty.
Hymns and Songs
O God, Our Help in Ages Past
UMH: 117
H82: 680
AAHH: 170
NNBH: 46
NCH: 25
CH: 67
LBW: 320
ELW: 632
W&P: 84
AMEC: 61
STLT: 281
For the Beauty of the Earth
UMH: 92
H82: 416
PH: 473
GTG: 14
NNBH: 8
NCH: 28
CH: 56
LBW: 561
ELW: 879
W&P: 40
AMEC: 578
STLT: 21
God of the Sparrow God of the Whale
UMH: 122
PH: 272
GTG: 22
NCH: 32
CH: 70
ELW: 740
W&P: 29
Out of the Depths I Cry to You
UMH: 515
H82: 666
PH: 240
GTG: 424
NCH: 483
CH: 510
LBW: 295
ELW: 600
By Gracious Powers
UMH: 517
H82: 695/696
PH: 342
GTG: 818
NCH: 413
ELW: 626
W&P: 75
Come, Ye Disconsolate
UMH: 510
AAHH: 421
NNBH: 264
CH: 502
ELW: 607
AMEC: 227
Take My Life, and Let It Be
UMH: 399
H82: 707
PH: 391
GTG: 697
NNBH: 213
NCH: 448
CH: 609
LBW: 406
ELW: 583/685
W&P: 466
AMEC: 292
Renew: 150
Seek Ye First
UMH: 405
H82: 711
PH: 333
GTG: 175
CH: 354
W&P: 349
CCB: 76
I Need Thee Every Hour
UMH: 397
GTG: 735
AAHH: 451
NNBH: 303
NCH: 517
CH: 578
W&P: 476
AMEC: 327
Turn You Eyes Upon Jesus
UMH: 349
NNBH: 195
ELW: 284
W&P: 472
CCB: 55
Your Loving Kindness Is Better than Life
CCB: 26
All I Need Is You
CCB: 100
Music Resources Key
UMH: United Methodist Hymnal
H82: The Hymnal 1982
PH: Presbyterian Hymnal
GTG: Glory to God, The 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
ELW: Evangelical Lutheran Worship
W&P: Worship & Praise
AMEC: African Methodist Episcopal Church Hymnal
STLT: Singing the Living Tradition
CCB: Cokesbury Chorus Book
Renew: Renew! Songs & Hymns for Blended Worship
Prayer for the Day/Collect
O God who is the source of all meaning and security:
Grant us the wisdom to seek all we need from you
so that the turbulence of the world does not undo us;
through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.
OR
We praise you, O God, because you are the source of all meaning and of all true security. It is in you alone that we live and move and have our being. Help us to look to you for all we need. Amen.
Prayer of Confession
One: Let us confess to God and before one another our sins and especially when we confuse the gift of creation for the wisdom and security of the creator.
All: We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. We look at the wonder of creation and we think that to possess it is to possess all that we need. We fail to see it as the gift that it is and instead see it as the very meaning of our lives. We try to amass all that we can so that we can feel secure. We look to your gifts for the meaning in our lives instead of finding it in you. Forgive us our short-sighted ways and restore us to our right minds. Help us find in you our meaning and our security. Amen.
One: God is our all in all and the eternal one who holds all. Receive God’s gracious gifts and mercy and center your life in the one who holds it.
Prayers of the People
Praise and glory to you, O God who is the very foundation of our being. You are the Rock on which we stand and build our lives.
(The following paragraph may be used if a separate prayer of confession has not been used.)
We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. We look at the wonder of creation and we think that to possess it is to possess all that we need. We fail to see it as the gift that it is and instead see it as the very meaning of our lives. We try to amass all that we can so that we can feel secure. We look to your gifts for the meaning in our lives instead of finding it in you. Forgive us our short-sighted ways and restore us to our right minds. Help us find in you our meaning and our security.
We give you thanks for all the goodness you have created for us. We thank you for all the signs that you love us and care for us. We are grateful that you have created us in your image and filled us with your Spirit that we may know you and love you. Those who have shared the good news with us are our blessing.
(Other thanksgivings may be offered.)
We pray for one another in our need. We lift up those who struggle to find meaning in their lives. Our hearts go out to those who strive to amass the things of this world in order to find a sense of meaning. We pray for those who have been hurt by those who think greed will make them great.
(Other intercessions may be offered.)
Hear us as we pray for others: (Time for silent or spoken prayer.)
All these things we ask in the name of our Savior Jesus Christ who taught us to pray saying:
Our Father....Amen.
(Or if the Our Father 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 SERMONLove God, Not Things
by Katy Stenta
Mark 10:17-31
Jesus often likes to answer questions with questions, or with riddles.
It was hard to get an easy answer from Jesus. You had to think about his answers.
So when a rich man came and asked how to get into heaven, Jesus told him to sell all of his possessions. A fairly striaghforward answer from Jesus, but a hard one.
How do you think it made that rich man feel that Jesus said to get rid of all of his possessions? (Give time for an answer, but it is okay if no one does.)
The Bible said he was sad because he owned so many things and didn't want to get rid of them.
Jesus then says it is easier that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to get into heaven.
This is a tricky riddle and it confuses everyone.
Then, Jesus says that anyone who has followed Jesus will receive a hundredfold of what they left and come to eternal life. He says the first will be last and the last will be first.
All of this is confusing as well, but the way Jesus’ ministry seems to work is that Jesus values things differently than other humans. Jesus says that it is our job is to love and serve God and not worry about possessions and being rich.
That last part, at least, is not confusing.
Let’s pray:
Dear God,
Sometimes life
Is confusing
And it’s hard
To know
What
We should
Value.
Thank you
For reminding
Us
To always
Remember
That love
Is the most
Important thing
in our lives.
Amen.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Immediate Word, October 13, 2024 issue.
Copyright 2024 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.
