Where Is Your God?
Children's sermon
Illustration
Preaching
Sermon
Worship
Object:
The news was stunning -- a deranged man calmly waited until last call at a packed gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, then suddenly began shooting. When the carnage was over several hours later, 50 people lay dead and more than 50 others were wounded -- making it the deadliest mass shooting in American history. As more details began emerging about the shooter -- that he had been previously been investigated by the FBI for ties to terrorists, that during his shooting spree he called 911 to pledge his allegiance to the Islamic State, and that he had legally purchased the guns he used in the previous week -- many questions were raised. Was it primarily a homophobic hate crime, or was it a terrorist attack on a “soft target”? Was it the work of someone directed by a terrorist organization, or was it the act of a lone wolf inspired by ISIS? Would limits on assault-type weapons and ammunition clips have prevented the shooting, or at least have made it more difficult for him to obtain the arms used in the attack?
There will be much discussion in the coming days about these and other questions -- but as team member Dean Feldmeyer discusses in this installment of The Immediate Word, for the family and friends of the victims (and for a grieving nation) they all pale next to the age-old question articulated by the psalmist: “Where is your God?” In the face of unimaginable horror like that experienced by the Orlando nightclub patrons, do we not all ask with the psalmist, “Why have you forgotten me? Why must I walk about mournfully because the enemy oppresses me?” The answer to those plaintive pleas, Dean reminds us, is also articulated by the psalmist in his deep thirst for and faith in God.
Team member Mary Austin shares some additional thoughts on Paul’s vision, articulated in the Galatians passage, that we are all God’s children -- making all of our other differences no longer important. Mary reflects on this through the lens of Hillary Clinton’s breaking of the “glass ceiling” regarding female presidential nominees, and more poignantly, in light of the Orlando shootings and their reminder of the violence often experienced by the LGBTQ community.
In addition to our usual complement of illustrations this week, team member Chris Keating has also contributed some items to assist in preaching and talking to children in the aftermath of a violent attack.
Where Is Your God?
by Dean Feldmeyer
Psalms 42 & 43
There is usually no malice in the question. It’s a genuine response to very real tragedy, to pain, to loss. Often it is not asked directly but hinted at in comments and words writ of grief and despair. And if we are honest, we will probably admit that we have from time to time asked it ourselves.
“Where is your God?”
A child dies in a house fire. A tornado levels a home. A flood drowns a grandmother. A schoolgirl standing on a street corner is killed in a drive-by shooting, collateral damage in a gang war. Fifty people die in a brutal and senseless act of gun violence in a Florida nightclub.
“Where is your God?”
It’s a question as old as scripture itself. Elijah used it to taunt the prophets of Baal. The adversaries of the psalmist taunt him with it when he is at his lowest, when life has fallen apart.
“Where is your God?”
Has God forgotten us? Has God withdrawn from us? Is God too busy to pay attention? Does God no longer care?
Where is your God?
Where indeed?
In the News
Newtown, a documentary film about the parents of the children killed in the Sandy Hook massacre, debuted at the Sundance Film Festival in January of this year and will be released for the general public in late summer or early autumn. It is reportedly very difficult to watch, and we cannot help but wonder and ask ourselves as we look at the faces and hear the words of those grieving parents: “Where was your God?”
Last week a group of cyclists who had bonded and befriended each other through their enthusiasm for bicycling -- not hardcore competitive biking like we see at the Tour de France, but friendly, Saturday morning, out-for-a-nice-ride-on-a-beautiful-day-with-our-friends kind of bicycling -- were riding together through the Michigan countryside. They playfully referred to themselves as “the Chain Gang.” Most of them were approaching if not fully into retirement age.
Then all of that ended when a pickup truck plowed into them on a rural road, killing five and injuring four others.
A few days later the group re-formed and participated in a “silent ride” past the place where their friends were killed. A memorial has been erected there with flowers and notes and a bicycle painted white, a “ghost bike.” And we would not blame them if, in their grief, they turned to us and asked: “Where was your God?”
And now Orlando has joined the list -- the litany of places where mass shootings have left us shocked and heartbroken, stumbling in the darkness of grief and pain, and asking questions for which there are often no satisfactory answers.
Newtown;
Aurora;
Charleston;
Virginia Tech;
Fort Hood;
San Bernardino;
and now, Orlando.
The questions pile up. Why? Was it terrorism, or hate, or both? And what kind of hate was it? Religious hate? Political hate? Homophobic hate? Or was it just the hate of a broken and twisted mind? Why didn’t someone see this coming and take steps to prevent it? Or was it just the unpreventable, unavoidable, inevitable result of the culture we have chosen for ourselves?
The shooter called 911 during the massacre and pledged his allegiance to ISIS -- but was that a real allegiance, or if there was no ISIS would he have just found another hate group to which he could attach himself, some other venom-spewing church or club that would justify his own demented loathing?
Politicians scramble to use this newest tragedy in shoring up their campaigns. Gun advocates rush to defend their Second Amendment rights, blaming “hearts without God, schools without prayer, and courts without justice” rather than entertaining the possibility that our gun laws are inadequate and our gun culture is out of control.
And in the midst of this cacophony of name-calling, blame-shifting, bombast, weeping, and lamentation, if we listen closely we can hear a small voice asking the question that gnaws at the back of our own minds: “Where is your God?”
Where was your God when the shooter was surveilling the nightclub, when he was planning his attack, when he was loading his guns? Where was your God when those young people were screaming in terror and falling to the floor in pain? Where was your God?
And where is your God now? Where is your God as those parents hear the names of their children read from the list of the casualties? Where is your God as the LGBTQ community tries to come to terms with the very real fact that they are not safe in this country -- that they may be murdered just for being who they are?
Where is your God?
In the Scriptures
Psalms 42 and 43 are probably a single psalm that was divided by accident at some time during 3,000 years of copying and transmission.
The psalm is a Maskil. While the meaning of that word is vague and hard to nail down, it probably meant that this was a song whose purpose was to teach a lesson. This is not praise music, as are so many of the psalms. It’s more of a theological statement in verse.
It was written by or comes from the tradition of the Korahites, the temple singers who were descended from Korah, the son of Levi.
It contains three strophes, wherein the poet talks to God about the difficulties of life and those who, upon viewing the poet’s difficulties, taunt him with the question “Where is your God?” The psalmist finds comfort through remembering times past in which God has relieved the suffering of God’s people and rescued them from their peril (The New Interpreter’s Study Bible [Abingdon Press, 2003], p. 788).
Each strophe ends with the poet speaking to himself in a refrain: “Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my help and my God” (Psalms 42:5, 11; 43:5)
The psalm begins with a simile that has been popularized in contemporary Christian music: “As a deer longs for flowing streams, so my soul longs for you, O God.” The word for “deer” is actually better translated “hart,” or female deer. Here the deer is seen as quarry searching for clean, flowing water which will refresh and invigorate her as she flees from harm as well as confuse dogs which are chasing her scent. Watch for water to be a main theme in this first strophe.
The psalmist links his own thirsting for God with the thirsting of the hart. But instead of fresh, flowing water, he has had only salty tears for nourishment. Enemies taunt people of faith who suffer: “Where is your God?”
In verse four the psalmist find the comfort for which he longs, and he notes that it is to be found in remembering times past and basing his faith upon his past experiences. God has saved me then, and will save me no less now. The refrain (v. 5) is the psalmist’s declaration of faith and hope.
In the second strophe the metaphor shifts. The water which was a source of comfort in the first strophe now becomes a source of threat and danger.
The roar of the waterfall drowns out the psalmist’s own voice. Life is out of control, not unlike the chaotic waves and currents of the sea. The psalmist continues to pray, but the prayers seem to do no good. The taunts of his enemies have grown to be more than a nuisance. Now they are like mortal wounds: “Where is your God?”
And yet the poet reminds himself that comfort is to be found in remembering (v. 11). God has loved us and cared for us in the past, and that past reaches into this day as well.
The final strophe is in the 43rd Psalm.
Now the psalmist is bolder: “Vindicate me!” He asks (demands?) God to answer those people who keep taunting him with that horrible question “Where is your God?” Why, he asks, does God want him to limp around like a weak and wounded man? Wouldn’t it honor God more if those who worship Elohim (the name for God in these psalms) were strong and successful, if they were singing God’s praise in the temple?
In verse 5, the psalmist returns to his refrain. Hope, he reminds himself, is to be found not in our own accomplishments, our own righteousness, and our own abilities, but in Elohim, our God.
In the Pulpit
The question “Where is your God?” deserves an answer, as do those who ask it. So let us take it seriously and offer to answer it, for ourselves and for our brothers and sisters who long for some word of comfort.
First, however, let us explore a few answers that we, as people of faith, will definitely not use in times of tragic pain or loss.
We will not say that God is in heaven and that this tragedy is somehow part of God’s vast and unknowable will that we must quietly and obediently accept.
The heaven spoken of here is part of a three-story universe that has lost its meaning in the modern mind, and the God spoken of is a distant, detached, uncaring despot who is not moved by human pain or suffering. This is not the God of the gospels, the God of Jesus and Paul whose grace abounds and whose love is greater than any singing of it.
In his wonderful little book The Will of God, Leslie Weatherhead points out how glibly we often “identify as the will of God something for which a man would be locked up in jail, or put in a criminal lunatic asylum.” Such errors must be confronted and challenged with more insightful, kinder, gentler theology.
Neither will we say that God requires us to believe that the suffering we are undergoing is, in some mysterious way that we don’t understand, actually good. Nowhere in scripture do we read that all things are good. What we do read is that God is, in all things, working for good (Romans 8:28). That is a huge difference. God can take even the most painful, most horrible acts or experiences of human beings and make good come from them -- and that is to be celebrated, but it is celebratory only to the degree that the horror from which this good has come was truly a horror.
And, of course, we will not say that everything happens for a reason, or that it could be worse, or any number of meaningless and even hurtful clichés that make us feel better for having said them but often only hurt those to whom they are said.
No, when we answer the question “Where is your God?” for others or for ourselves, we will answer with the assurance of the psalmist, who knows -- from experience far-off in the past and as recent as yesterday -- that God is always closest to those who suffer. God’s voice is always loudest and God’s will is often most clearly articulated in the silent suffering of those who are oppressed. In the streets, in the ghettos, in the hospitals and medical clinics, under the bridge, in the homeless shelter, on the battlefield, or standing in line at the soup kitchen -- wherever we see people in pain, God is there. And if we want to stand with God, we’d better get up and go there too.
As Rabbi Harold S. Kushner said in Overcoming Life’s Disappointments, “God is the light shining in the midst of darkness, not to deny that there is darkness in the world but to reassure us that we do not have to be afraid of the darkness because darkness will always yield to light. As theologian David Griffin puts it, God is all-powerful. His power enables people to deal with events beyond their control, and He gives us the strength to do those things because He is with us.”
SECOND THOUGHTS
by Mary Austin
Galatians 3:23-29
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has made history, securing enough delegates to become the presumptive Democratic candidate for president. As she crossed this particular finish line, the biggest gender barrier in American life seemed to fall. CNN reported: “Regardless of party persuasion, Hillary Clinton’s victory is the definition of historic: She became the first female presidential nominee of a major political party. Her chances of becoming president -- the first woman head of state in America’s 238-year history -- are now much closer to reality. The impact of the moment was not lost on Clinton.” Before her speech that night, Clinton posted a picture of herself with a little girl on Instagram, saying: “To every little girl who dreams big: Yes, you can be anything you want -- even president. Tonight is for you.”
One might think that in politics at least, we have reached the vision Paul lays out for the Galatians. “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female,” Paul proclaims, announcing our new identity in Christ. Each category he mentions is a hierarchical one -- one half of the pair dominates the other. Writing to a world organized by hierarchy, Paul says that our common roots in Christ end the world’s divisions. If our faith connects us, and if we follow the example of Jesus, then the divisions have lost their power.
For Clinton, gender has added interesting complexities to the race. USA Today notes that research shows female candidates have to be not just qualified but also likeable, compared to male candidates who just have to be capable of doing the job: “For instance, a report this spring by the Barbara Lee Family Foundation found that voters are willing to support a male candidate they don't like if they think he is qualified. But they are less likely to support a female candidate they think is qualified unless they also like her. ‘For women candidates, likability is linked to electability, and that’s not the case for men,’ says Adrienne Kimmell, executive director of the nonpartisan institute.” We assume that women are more trustworthy than men, but penalize them more harshly if we don’t think that’s the case. “Male candidates face lower expectations that they will be honest, and voters are quicker to forgive them when they aren't.” The article adds, “Clinton faces the same dilemma as other female candidates in trying to come across as decisive and impassioned without being accused of being shrill.”
Male candidates have more leeway, observes Mark Joseph Stern in Slate, noting that “in any nominating race featuring a female candidate, there will always be a Bernie Sanders -- a male alternative whose gender allows him to do everything his female opponent cannot.... [Sanders] and Clinton have mostly minor policy disputes, but Sanders is heralded as a true progressive, even though his most liberal proposals are politically dead in the water. Still, Sanders’ angry populist demagogue shtick goes over extraordinarily well with young liberals, especially white ones, who are weary of horse-trading incremental change. As Rebecca Traister recently noted, Clinton would be committing political suicide if she were equally loud and indignant and unkempt and fiery. ‘No one likes a woman who yells loudly about revolution, Traister wrote.”
The Huffington Post suggested that there are three kinds of reactions to Clinton’s presumptive nomination. For many, both women and men, there was out and out joy, and a sense of history being made. A middle group used the hashtag #GirlIGuessImWithHer, an adaptation of supporters’ jubilant #ImWithHer. The hashtag #GirlIGuessImWithHer “quickly took off Tuesday night, spreading through Twitter like a giant shoulder shrug. The general consensus is that while Clinton may not bring the revolution progressives have been hoping for -- and while many have serious issues with things she has said and done -- many left-leaning, pro-Sanders Democrats are willing to fall in line and unite.” A third group is uniting under #HillNo. “Some progressives are so anti-Clinton that they flirt with the idea of voting for Trump -- or have even openly declared that they’re on the #TrumpTrain. They think a Trump presidency could create the conditions needed for a political revolution. They prefer a shock to the system to politics as usual.” And then there are Republicans, also on the #HillNo bandwagon for an array of reasons.
If Paul were writing today, he might highlight other social dividing lines. Would he tell us that there is no longer rich or poor? Citizen or immigrant? Straight or gay?
This past weekend’s terror attack in a gay-friendly Orlando nightclub has pointed out the danger still faced by LGBTQ Americans, even with dramatic advances in gay rights. The shooter, who claimed to operating for ISIS, targeted gay people. The New York Times reports that “Mateen’s father told NBC News that his son had been angry when he saw two men kissing. The East Orlando Post reported that Mr. Mateen had researched at least one other gay club in Orlando before attacking Pulse.” The gay community is painfully aware of the high cost of violence directed their way: “That includes the days when gay people worried about being branded ‘faggots’ and beaten, whether in small towns or in gay centers like New York; the 1973 arson attack on a gay bar in New Orleans that left 32 people dead; the 1998 murder of Matthew Shepard. All are cultural touchstones for the community.” This weekend’s attack is more dramatic and more deadly, but violence has been common this year. “Movement leaders, speaking anecdotally, said they sensed an increase in violence against gay people this year -- perhaps, some said, because of the divisive presidential campaign, or because of high-profile policy fights like the one over the Obama administration’s recent directive requiring schools to allow transgender students to use the bathrooms of their choice.” After this attack has faded from mind for many of us, the gay community will have to remember, and grief will continue.
Violence is never far from the minds of people in the LGBTQ community. Author Martha Spong wrote recently about how rare it is to feel safe enough to be herself. On a trip to Maine, she said, “my wife and I have had the odd experience of feeling both safe with the family and safe in the Portland area, safe enough to touch each other in public, even to exchange a restrained kiss or two.... I’ll confess, the first moment in which we relaxed our guard this weekend, I thought, ‘I wonder who is looking?’ We watch ourselves at home in Pennsylvania, where we always watch how we interact with each other, where we both work in churches where some people disapprove of our ‘lifestyle,’ where we know we are not safe, not really.”
Paul writes that divisions have ended, and hierarchies are overturned in Jesus. He writes about what God has already accomplished, and humanity has yet to realize.
Curiously, grief is one of the places where divisions are erased and tears form a common bond. As we mourn and tears fall, there is no longer young or old, rich or poor. At funerals in the coming weeks, we can pray that grieving parents and stunned friends will find common bonds. Grandparents and drag queens may laugh together over jello at funeral lunches. Pastors will be schooled by young LGBTQ people, and our shared life will be enriched. It doesn’t erase this tragedy. It doesn’t begin to balance it out, but grace may bubble out of our dividing lines, until we come a step closer to what Paul has in mind. In Orlando, the Muslim community is being urged to donate blood in the wake of the terror attack. As the donated blood drips into the veins of those recovering from the attack, they will hold in their bodies the truth that there is no longer Muslim or Christian or atheist, no longer gay or straight, no longer male or female. May that be one small step toward making it so in our spirits, and in our communities too.
ILLUSTRATIONS
From team member Chris Keating:
Special Resources for Talking about the Orlando Shooting/Terrorist Attack
What to Say to Children
While many parents will make the choice to shield children from discussions about the Orlando shooting (or other terrorist-related attacks), it may be impossible to avoid any discussion of the topic. The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry offers these suggestions for talking to children about violence. Here is a quick summary:
* Listening is key. Create a time and place where children can ask questions. Don’t force children to talk until they are ready.
* Children may personalize these events. For example, they may have relatives in Florida or may remember that is where they went to Disney World.
* Some children may have difficulty verbalizing fears or questions. They may be more adept at drawing a picture, or playing with toys.
* Answer questions directly and honestly. Avoid stereotyping people or groups; be consistent and reassuring; don’t make unrealistic promises.
* Provide support by continuing similar routines, letting them play, and limiting news coverage.
*****
Should We Delay Talking to our Kids?
That can be a personal decision. But one specialist notes that they are probably already talking about it. After the terror attacks in Paris, Harold Koplewicz suggested that honesty is vital. “It’s very likely that your child will hear what happened,” Koplewicz said, “and its best that it comes from you so that you are able to answer any questions, convey the facts, and set the emotional tone.”
*****
Not in God’s Name
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks of England has written a profoundly important book that addresses the relationship between religion and violence. Not in God’s Name explores religious extremism, and provides theological responses to violence. “When religion turns men into murderers,” Sacks begins, “God weeps.” When violence is committed as an act of faith, “God speaks, sometimes in a still, small voice almost inaudible beneath the clamor of those claiming to speak on his behalf. What he says at such times is: Not in my name.”
***************
1 Kings 19:1-4 (5-7) 8-15a
What it Means to Find Zero Noise
According to the people at the Guinness Book of World Records, the quietest place in the world is Steve Orfield’s laboratory in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Orfield is an acoustic researcher who measures the quality of sounds for different market segments. His anechoic chamber -- a room that literally means “no-echo” -- is specially designed to provide what could be described as sheer silence. The six-sided room floats on springs in a concrete pit, and is surrounded by additional concrete chambers and cement walls at least ten feet thick.
Orfield emphasizes that in technical terms, the quietest place on Earth, like Cage’s symphony, isn’t actually silent. It’s really just a place where sound can’t reverberate -- the opposite of, say, a cathedral or a sports arena. Still, the Guinness distinction warrants that people often want to come by and visit. If nothing else, it’s a study in sensory deprivation. “We’ve offered to give anybody who will sit in there for 45 minutes in the dark a case of Guinness,” Orfield explains. “But no one’s ever taken us up. People are kind of frightened of the room.” Even he won’t do it. “If I sat in there for a half an hour, I would be uncomfortable. If I did it ten times in a row, I would still be uncomfortable.”
Researchers say complete silence is unnerving, and can be a shock to one’s auditory system. Silence may be golden for some, but tolerating long periods of silence can be demanding. For Elijah, the appearance of God in the quiet following the storm, the wind, and earthquake requires a calming stillness which renders him particularly attuned to the presence and mystery of God.
*****
1 Kings 19:1-4 (5-7) 8-15a
Moving Beyond our Comfort Zones
George Prochnik, author of the book In Pursuit of Silence, conducted research into silence and eventually landed in the basement of a Trappist monastery. In the cellar beneath the Trappist New Melleray Abbey in Iowa, Prochnik explored the meaning of silence. The monk who guided him to the place warmed Prochnik that the sound of silence might be so intense it would “take me out of my comfort zone.” The monk warned him, “Some people from big cities find themselves physically unable to remain in the chapel for even five minutes.” Yet the monks who retreat to the quiet place come again and again in search of that “sheer silence” which communicated God’s presence to Elijah in his time of spiritual despair.
*****
Psalm 42
Needing a Drink?
Deer aren’t the only ones panting during the hot summer months. According to CNN, so far this summer the number of children who have died as the result of being left in a hot car has more than tripled when compared to last year. It’s a disturbing trend, and a reminder of how easy it is to become distracted. For example, while sipping an iced tea at my local McDonald’s last week I noticed a flurry of police cars. Officers surrounded a car in the parking lot, responding to a call that a mother had left her small children in the car while interviewing for a job at the restaurant. When she returned 40 minutes later, police arrested the woman. The children received treatment by paramedics and were released to a family member. In some ways, spiritual thirst can emerge nearly as quickly. In his “Evangelism Coach” blog, evangelical writer Chris Walker describes spiritual thirst as a deep longing for God, often expressed by way of stories or yearning for healing, forgiveness, of spiritual self-care.
Blogger Karl Persson, writing for “The Inner Room,” carries the notion of spiritual thirst a bit further, and notes that “in a world looking for a pill for dehydration, there’s a better option -- there’s still hope for tasting the freshness of water.” His words are particularly apt for these dry summer days, especially following the tragic shooting in Orlando:
It is indeed an apt metaphor for the contemplative Christian life and all that that entails -- the inhabitance of scripture; the romance of silence; the strange holiness of the dark night; the God in the whirlwind; the wedding of the Lamb; all the things we long desperately for and then seem to miss, seem unable to experience. “My soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water” (Psalm 63, NRSVCE) says the psalmist, and our hearts beat in time with his -- until we grow bored and wander off and find some distraction or other to numb us, some vice to distract us, or worse still some virtue to recast as a frantic idol. “Thirst?” we say. “Who thirsts? Are not these the gods that brought us up out of Egypt?”
*****
Galatians 3:23-29
Seeking Unity in a Divided World
Paul’s argument for faith that is justified by grace in Galatians explores the new relationship offered in Jesus Christ -- a relationship where there is “no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free...” -- and is a compelling call to seek unity amidst divisions. Following the devastating shootings in Orlando, many were moved to displays of unity, even in a divided world. Mahmoud El-Awadi, a Muslim American, demonstrated this sort of unity by posting a photograph of his arm while donating blood for the victims of the shooting. The comment he posted along with this photograph calls us all to seek common unity:
-Yes, my name is Mahmoud, a proud Muslim American.
-Yes, I donated blood even though I can’t eat or drink anything ’cause I’m fasting in our holy month Ramadan, just like hundreds of other Muslims who donated today here in Orlando.
-Yes, I’m angry for what happened last night and all the innocent lives we lost.
-Yes, I’m sad, frustrated, and mad that a crazy guy claiming to be a Muslim did that shameful act.
-Yes, I witnessed the greatness of this country watching thousands of people standing in 92-degree sun waiting their turn to donate blood, even after they were told that the wait time is 5-7 hours.
-Yes, this is the greatest nation on earth, watching people from different ages including kids volunteering to give water, juice, food, umbrellas, sunblock. Also watching our old veterans coming to donate and next to them Muslim women in hijabs carrying food and water to donors standing in line.
-Yes, together we will stand against hate, terrorism, extremism, and racism.
-Yes, our blood all looks the same, so get out there and donate blood ’cause our fellow American citizens are injured and need our blood.
-Yes, our community in central Florida is heartbroken, but let’s put our colors, religions, ethnicity, sexual orientation, political views all aside so we can UNITE against those who are trying to hurt us.
*****
Luke 8:26-39
Legion: Making a Difference at Home
After Jesus released the demons that had plagued the man called Legion, his old neighbors found him sitting at the feet of Jesus, “clothed and in his right mind.” Yet this wasn’t so comforting for his friends; indeed, Luke tells us the entire community was seized by fear. It seems the sight of demons rushing into a herd of little piggies isn’t something you see every day. The memories of how the man used to torment them lingered as well. Apparently the man felt the same way, because he begged Jesus to let him get into the boat and go back to Galilee with Jesus. Instead, Jesus tells him to go and share the story of his healing.
Many who have struggled with traumatic events want to put the past behind them, and like the man who was healed simply move on to new experiences. In particular, veterans who return from war are struggling with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in record numbers. Sebastian Junger talked about his experience of PTSD after coming home from Afghanistan. Paralyzed by fear in a subway station, Junger is overwhelmed by a fear of dying:
I had no idea that what I’d just experienced had anything to do with combat; I just thought I was going crazy. For the next several months I kept having panic attacks whenever I was in a small place with too many people -- airplanes, ski gondolas, crowded bars. Gradually the incidents stopped, and I didn’t think about them again until I found myself talking to a woman at a picnic who worked as a psychotherapist. She asked whether I’d been affected by my war experiences, and I said no, I didn’t think so. But for some reason I described my puzzling panic attack in the subway. “That’s called post-traumatic stress disorder,” she said. “You’ll be hearing a lot more about that in the next few years.”
Isolation adds to the experience of PTSD, which is one reason why members of the Israeli military report low incidents of post-service stress. Because so many Israelis have served in the military, experience of trauma is not as isolated as it is in other countries. Junger notes that the shocking disconnect for young veterans returning home is how different their experience of the world has been from others. It’s hard to compare war to anything else, he notes. What’s often needed are homecoming celebrations oriented toward integrating vets back into communities. They are given a new mission -- a commissioning perhaps resembling the orders Jesus gives to the man who has been healed.
***************
From team member Ron Love:
1 Kings 19:1-4 (5-7) 8-15a
In a lengthy Washington Post article, Michelle Boorstein ponders if God is punishing the United States with the two candidates for the next presidential election. After quoting religious leaders from various religious perspectives, Boorstein wonders, “Could there be some divine cosmic force behind the fact that the last two candidates standing to run the world’s superpower are the least-liked White House contenders in American history?”
Application: In the land of Jezebel, we do need an Elijah.
*****
1 Kings 19:1-4 (5-7) 8-15a
It was always a mystery to scientists how birds could always find their way home, no matter where they were released. One example comes from a British naval bomber shot down in the North Sea in 1942. The only communication the crew had was a carrier pigeon. The bird, covered in oil from the crash, was released from the survivors’ raft and flew 120 miles across the ocean to its owner -- and a successful rescue attempt ensued. A study has found that birds are able to do this by using quantum mechanics for navigation. The birds have magnetic sensors that allow them to read the earth’s magnetic field, and they use this information to orient themselves for their flight home. The birds are able to “see” the earth’s magnetic field and fly through it.
Application: Elijah, as he stood at the mouth of the cave, was trying to read the earth’s magnetic spiritual field for his trip home.
*****
Galatians 3:23-29
In the news this past week was the story of a Hindu monastery volunteer being hacked to death with machetes by Muslims in Bangladesh. Nitya Ranjan Pandey, who was 60 years old and who had volunteered at the monastery for 40 years, was taking a walk when he was attacked. He was the fourth Hindu or Christian hacked to death in a week by Bangladeshi Islamists. Those being killed are religious minorities and academics in the majority Muslim nation.
Application: Paul cautions that one’s religion ought to always speak of equality, not discrimination.
*****
Galatians 3:23-29
In 1964 Cassius Clay converted from Christianity to Islam, and with that changed his name to Muhammad Ali. After his conversion Ali met with evangelist Billy Graham. Of that meeting Ali said, “I’ve always admired Mr. Graham, I’m Muslim and he’s a Christian.... I always said if I was a Christian, I’d want to be a Christian like him.”
Application: As Christians we need to live our lives with a sense of equality, so that others would want to be like us.
*****
Galatians 3:23-29
A religious news story that was widely reported, probably because of its irony, is that Noah’s ark almost sank this week. A replica of the ark was being towed out of a harbor in the Netherlands to be taken to South America for the Olympic Games, when the handlers lost control and it collided with a Norwegian naval vessel. The ark sustained a huge hole in the side of its hull.
Application: Though we live by faith, our journey will not be problem-free.
*****
Galatians 3:23-29
Jimmy Carter recently visited the Ark Encounter Park in Kentucky. He only made the visit because a good friend of his built the ark. The park features an ark 510 feet long and 80 feet wide, making it the largest free-standing timber-framed structure in the world. The park expounds creationism, believing the world was created 6,000 years ago. Carter believes the world is 4 billion years old, and said while at the park, “As a scientist, I believe in evolution.”
Application: Paul is clear that we must understand what we believe.
*****
Galatians 3:23-29
In a recent article, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman discussed a workshop he attended on inequality. The entire week was focused on the inequality experienced by individuals. During a coffee break, Krugman thought to himself that they also ought to be talking about horizontal inequality -- inequality experienced by groups of people. The most obvious horizontal inequality is race, and Krugman believes that racial inequality will determine the outcome of the next general election.
Application: Paul talked about the importance of equality.
*****
Luke 8:26-39
Mel Gibson, who produced and directed the movie The Passion of the Christ, is now preparing a sequel focusing on the resurrection. The Passion ended at the empty tomb; now the days following the resurrection will be presented. Randall Wallace, who wrote the screenplay for The Passion and will also write the new screenplay, said, “The Passion is the beginning, and there’s a lot more story to tell.”
Application: Legion, when healed, proclaimed the gospel message, for he knew there was a story to be told.
*****
Luke 8:26-39
A recent book that has become very popular is A Good Month For a Murder: The Inside Story of a Homicide Squad. The author, Del Quentin Wilber, embedded himself with the homicide squad of Prince George’s County, Maryland, just outside of Washington, D.C. In the book the detectives discuss a “red ball” murder -- the slaying of a transparently innocent victim that has attracted media attention and therefore “must be solved, and solved yesterday.”
Application: Everyone who came to Jesus for healing was a “red ball” case.
*****
Luke 8:26-39
Each Saturday the Washington Post has a column titled “Inspired Life” in which the inspirational lives of others are shared. Last week the paper reported on a homeless World War II veteran who was going to be buried alone, without anyone present, at Quantico National Cemetery. Serina Vine, who served in the Navy during World War II, was a radio intelligence operator. Since leaving the service, she became an unknown, homeless individual. When Maj. Jaspen Boothe learned of the upcoming unattended burial, she contacted veterans groups and asked for their support and attendance. She was hoping 20 people would show, only to discover that over 200 veterans came, along with a Marine honor guard and a band. In the eulogy the chaplain summarized the events of the ceremony with these words: “In the military we do not serve alone, therefore we should not die alone.”
Application: Jesus in his ministry demonstrated that no one is to be alone.
WORSHIP RESOURCES
by George Reed
Call to Worship
Leader: As a deer longs for flowing streams,
People: So our soul longs for you, O God.
Leader: My adversaries taunt me, saying, “Where is your God?”
People: Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you disquieted within me?
Leader: Hope in God, who is our help and our God.
People: O God, send out your light and your truth.
OR
Leader: God calls us to gather to worship and be fed.
People: We come seeking our God.
Leader: God is here and is always with us.
People: It is difficult to believe that sometimes.
Leader: Sometimes we find God only in the times of silence.
People: We will ask for faith to find God in all of life.
Hymns and Sacred Songs
“Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise”
found in:
UMH: 103
H82: 423
PH: 263
NCH: 1
CH: 66
LBW: 526
ELA: 834
W&P: 48
AMEC: 71
STLT: 273
Renew: 46
“There’s a Wideness in God’s Mercy”
found in:
UMH: 121
H82: 469, 470
PH: 298
NCH: 23
CH: 73
LBW: 290
ELA: 587, 588
W&P: 61
AMEC: 78
STLT: 213
“This Is My Father’s World”
found in:
UMH: 144
H82: 651
PH: 293
AAHH: 149
NNBH: 41
CH: 59
LBW: 554
ELA: 824
W&P: 21
AMEC: 47
“Be Thou My Vision”
found in:
UMH: 451
H82: 488
PH: 339
NCH: 451
CH: 595
ELA: 793
W&P: 502
AMEC: 281
STLT: 20
Renew: 151
“Open My Eyes, That I May See”
found in:
UMH: 454
PH: 324
NNBH: 218
CH: 586
W&P: 480
AMEC: 284
“Holy Spirit, Truth Divine”
found in:
UMH: 465
PH: 321
NCH: 63
CH: 241
LBW: 257
ELA: 398
“Trust and Obey”
found in:
UMH: 467
AAHH: 380
NNBH: 322
CH: 556
W&P: 443
AMEC: 377
“Near to the Heart of God”
found in:
UMH: 472
PH: 527
NNBH: 16
CH: 581
AMEC: 322
“Open Our Eyes, Lord”
found in:
CCB: 77
Renew: 91
“Holy Ground”
found in:
CCB: 5
Music Resources Key:
UMH: United Methodist Hymnal
H82: The Hymnal 1982 (The Episcopal Church)
PH: Presbyterian Hymnal
AAHH: African-American Heritage Hymnal
NNBH: The New National Baptist Hymnal
NCH: The New Century Hymnal
CH: Chalice Hymnal
LBW: Lutheran Book of Worship
ELA: Evangelical Lutheran Worship
W&P: Worship & Praise
AMEC: African Methodist Episcopal Church Hymnal
STLT: Singing the Living Tradition
CCB: Cokesbury Chorus Book
Renew: Renew! Songs & Hymns for Blended Worship
Prayer for the Day / Collect
O God who is closer to us than our own breath: Grant us the wisdom to know that you are always with us, and grant us the grace to be your presence for others; through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.
OR
You, O God, are closer to us than our own breath. Send your Spirit upon us that we might be aware of your constant presence. Give us the courage to act as your presence for those around us. Amen.
Prayer of Confession
Leader: Let us confess to God and before one another our sins, and especially our quickness to conclude that God is not with us.
People: We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. When things go wrong for us and we experience great hurt, we think that means you have deserted us. We have this idea that if you are with us then nothing bad can happen to us. We forget that even Jesus experienced terrible times and feelings of being left alone. Yet in the end, he experienced new life and glory. Help us to trust in your loving presence, even when we cannot sense it. So fill us with your Spirit that we trust you in all the times of our lives. Amen.
Leader: God is with us. God seeks us and seeks our good, even when things are going very wrong in life. Receive God’s love, and know that you are never alone.
Prayers of the People (and the Lord’s Prayer)
We praise you, O God, and worship you as the creator of all. You not only made all that is, but you also have filled everything with your presence and Spirit.
(The following paragraph may be used if a separate prayer of confession has not been used.)
We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. When things go wrong for us and we experience great hurt, we think that means you have deserted us. We have this idea that if you are with us then nothing bad can happen to us. We forget that even Jesus experienced terrible times and feelings of being left alone. Yet in the end, he experienced new life and glory. Help us to trust in your loving presence, even when we cannot sense it. So fill us with your Spirit that we trust you in all the times of our lives.
We give you thanks for the times when we are able to sense your presence. We thank you for your love that embraces us in the words and actions of your people. We thank you for the assurance that you are with us, even when we are unaware of you.
(Other thanksgivings may be offered.)
We pray for one another in our need, and especially for those who feel alone and deserted in life. Help us make you present to others through words and actions of true love and care.
(Other intercessions may be offered.)
All these things we ask in the name of our Savior Jesus Christ, who taught us to pray together, saying:
Our Father . . . Amen.
(or if the Lord’s Prayer is not used at this point in the service)
All this we ask in the Name of the Blessed and Holy Trinity. Amen.
Children’s Sermon Starter
Teach the children to find their pulse, either in their wrist or their neck. We can find our pulse and know that our hearts are there and working. Most of the time we don’t feel our hearts, but they are still there. Sometimes we are aware of God being with us. But even when we are not, God is there -- just like our hearts.
CHILDREN’S SERMON
All the Same in Christ
Galatians 3:23-29
Object: a bag of different colored marbles
Do you know what I have here? (Pour some of the marbles in your hand.) Marbles! (Hold them up one by one as you speak.) Are they alike or are they different? Yes, they all look very different. There are a lot of different colors; in fact, no two are exactly alike. Would you like to see them? (If appropriate, pass the marbles around for the children to examine them.) You may have one you like best -- perhaps you like one color better. Perhaps there’s one that just feels special when you hold it.
But the marbles aren’t really different. Even though they look different, no one marble is more special than any other. We use them all the same way when we play games. People are like marbles. At first we all look different. We are different sizes and colors. No two people are exactly alike. Even identical twins have different fingerprints. But you know what? When God looks at us, he doesn’t see the differences. We are all wonderful, special people to him. We’ve learned in our lessons that God even calls us his children.
It would be easy to decide that some people are better than others. Lots of people think that way. But in God’s eyes it doesn’t matter if you are a girl or a boy, rich or poor, tall or short. It doesn’t matter what color you are. You are one of God’s precious children, and so is the person sitting next to you. So is the person who is homeless. So is the person in jail. So is the person living in a village on the other side of the world.
One of Jesus’ biggest lessons was that we are to love our neighbors as ourselves. We are to love all people the same, just as God loves all of us the same. We are all God’s children, and we’ve learned that that makes us brothers and sisters to each other. It isn’t always easy to see the world the way that God does, but he can help us. We should ask him to help us see the things that make us the same and not the things that make us different.
Prayer: Help us, God, to love each other the way you do. Please show us that our differences are wonderful, but also help us remember that we are all equally special. Amen.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Immediate Word, June 19, 2016, issue.
Copyright 2016 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
There will be much discussion in the coming days about these and other questions -- but as team member Dean Feldmeyer discusses in this installment of The Immediate Word, for the family and friends of the victims (and for a grieving nation) they all pale next to the age-old question articulated by the psalmist: “Where is your God?” In the face of unimaginable horror like that experienced by the Orlando nightclub patrons, do we not all ask with the psalmist, “Why have you forgotten me? Why must I walk about mournfully because the enemy oppresses me?” The answer to those plaintive pleas, Dean reminds us, is also articulated by the psalmist in his deep thirst for and faith in God.
Team member Mary Austin shares some additional thoughts on Paul’s vision, articulated in the Galatians passage, that we are all God’s children -- making all of our other differences no longer important. Mary reflects on this through the lens of Hillary Clinton’s breaking of the “glass ceiling” regarding female presidential nominees, and more poignantly, in light of the Orlando shootings and their reminder of the violence often experienced by the LGBTQ community.
In addition to our usual complement of illustrations this week, team member Chris Keating has also contributed some items to assist in preaching and talking to children in the aftermath of a violent attack.
Where Is Your God?
by Dean Feldmeyer
Psalms 42 & 43
There is usually no malice in the question. It’s a genuine response to very real tragedy, to pain, to loss. Often it is not asked directly but hinted at in comments and words writ of grief and despair. And if we are honest, we will probably admit that we have from time to time asked it ourselves.
“Where is your God?”
A child dies in a house fire. A tornado levels a home. A flood drowns a grandmother. A schoolgirl standing on a street corner is killed in a drive-by shooting, collateral damage in a gang war. Fifty people die in a brutal and senseless act of gun violence in a Florida nightclub.
“Where is your God?”
It’s a question as old as scripture itself. Elijah used it to taunt the prophets of Baal. The adversaries of the psalmist taunt him with it when he is at his lowest, when life has fallen apart.
“Where is your God?”
Has God forgotten us? Has God withdrawn from us? Is God too busy to pay attention? Does God no longer care?
Where is your God?
Where indeed?
In the News
Newtown, a documentary film about the parents of the children killed in the Sandy Hook massacre, debuted at the Sundance Film Festival in January of this year and will be released for the general public in late summer or early autumn. It is reportedly very difficult to watch, and we cannot help but wonder and ask ourselves as we look at the faces and hear the words of those grieving parents: “Where was your God?”
Last week a group of cyclists who had bonded and befriended each other through their enthusiasm for bicycling -- not hardcore competitive biking like we see at the Tour de France, but friendly, Saturday morning, out-for-a-nice-ride-on-a-beautiful-day-with-our-friends kind of bicycling -- were riding together through the Michigan countryside. They playfully referred to themselves as “the Chain Gang.” Most of them were approaching if not fully into retirement age.
Then all of that ended when a pickup truck plowed into them on a rural road, killing five and injuring four others.
A few days later the group re-formed and participated in a “silent ride” past the place where their friends were killed. A memorial has been erected there with flowers and notes and a bicycle painted white, a “ghost bike.” And we would not blame them if, in their grief, they turned to us and asked: “Where was your God?”
And now Orlando has joined the list -- the litany of places where mass shootings have left us shocked and heartbroken, stumbling in the darkness of grief and pain, and asking questions for which there are often no satisfactory answers.
Newtown;
Aurora;
Charleston;
Virginia Tech;
Fort Hood;
San Bernardino;
and now, Orlando.
The questions pile up. Why? Was it terrorism, or hate, or both? And what kind of hate was it? Religious hate? Political hate? Homophobic hate? Or was it just the hate of a broken and twisted mind? Why didn’t someone see this coming and take steps to prevent it? Or was it just the unpreventable, unavoidable, inevitable result of the culture we have chosen for ourselves?
The shooter called 911 during the massacre and pledged his allegiance to ISIS -- but was that a real allegiance, or if there was no ISIS would he have just found another hate group to which he could attach himself, some other venom-spewing church or club that would justify his own demented loathing?
Politicians scramble to use this newest tragedy in shoring up their campaigns. Gun advocates rush to defend their Second Amendment rights, blaming “hearts without God, schools without prayer, and courts without justice” rather than entertaining the possibility that our gun laws are inadequate and our gun culture is out of control.
And in the midst of this cacophony of name-calling, blame-shifting, bombast, weeping, and lamentation, if we listen closely we can hear a small voice asking the question that gnaws at the back of our own minds: “Where is your God?”
Where was your God when the shooter was surveilling the nightclub, when he was planning his attack, when he was loading his guns? Where was your God when those young people were screaming in terror and falling to the floor in pain? Where was your God?
And where is your God now? Where is your God as those parents hear the names of their children read from the list of the casualties? Where is your God as the LGBTQ community tries to come to terms with the very real fact that they are not safe in this country -- that they may be murdered just for being who they are?
Where is your God?
In the Scriptures
Psalms 42 and 43 are probably a single psalm that was divided by accident at some time during 3,000 years of copying and transmission.
The psalm is a Maskil. While the meaning of that word is vague and hard to nail down, it probably meant that this was a song whose purpose was to teach a lesson. This is not praise music, as are so many of the psalms. It’s more of a theological statement in verse.
It was written by or comes from the tradition of the Korahites, the temple singers who were descended from Korah, the son of Levi.
It contains three strophes, wherein the poet talks to God about the difficulties of life and those who, upon viewing the poet’s difficulties, taunt him with the question “Where is your God?” The psalmist finds comfort through remembering times past in which God has relieved the suffering of God’s people and rescued them from their peril (The New Interpreter’s Study Bible [Abingdon Press, 2003], p. 788).
Each strophe ends with the poet speaking to himself in a refrain: “Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my help and my God” (Psalms 42:5, 11; 43:5)
The psalm begins with a simile that has been popularized in contemporary Christian music: “As a deer longs for flowing streams, so my soul longs for you, O God.” The word for “deer” is actually better translated “hart,” or female deer. Here the deer is seen as quarry searching for clean, flowing water which will refresh and invigorate her as she flees from harm as well as confuse dogs which are chasing her scent. Watch for water to be a main theme in this first strophe.
The psalmist links his own thirsting for God with the thirsting of the hart. But instead of fresh, flowing water, he has had only salty tears for nourishment. Enemies taunt people of faith who suffer: “Where is your God?”
In verse four the psalmist find the comfort for which he longs, and he notes that it is to be found in remembering times past and basing his faith upon his past experiences. God has saved me then, and will save me no less now. The refrain (v. 5) is the psalmist’s declaration of faith and hope.
In the second strophe the metaphor shifts. The water which was a source of comfort in the first strophe now becomes a source of threat and danger.
The roar of the waterfall drowns out the psalmist’s own voice. Life is out of control, not unlike the chaotic waves and currents of the sea. The psalmist continues to pray, but the prayers seem to do no good. The taunts of his enemies have grown to be more than a nuisance. Now they are like mortal wounds: “Where is your God?”
And yet the poet reminds himself that comfort is to be found in remembering (v. 11). God has loved us and cared for us in the past, and that past reaches into this day as well.
The final strophe is in the 43rd Psalm.
Now the psalmist is bolder: “Vindicate me!” He asks (demands?) God to answer those people who keep taunting him with that horrible question “Where is your God?” Why, he asks, does God want him to limp around like a weak and wounded man? Wouldn’t it honor God more if those who worship Elohim (the name for God in these psalms) were strong and successful, if they were singing God’s praise in the temple?
In verse 5, the psalmist returns to his refrain. Hope, he reminds himself, is to be found not in our own accomplishments, our own righteousness, and our own abilities, but in Elohim, our God.
In the Pulpit
The question “Where is your God?” deserves an answer, as do those who ask it. So let us take it seriously and offer to answer it, for ourselves and for our brothers and sisters who long for some word of comfort.
First, however, let us explore a few answers that we, as people of faith, will definitely not use in times of tragic pain or loss.
We will not say that God is in heaven and that this tragedy is somehow part of God’s vast and unknowable will that we must quietly and obediently accept.
The heaven spoken of here is part of a three-story universe that has lost its meaning in the modern mind, and the God spoken of is a distant, detached, uncaring despot who is not moved by human pain or suffering. This is not the God of the gospels, the God of Jesus and Paul whose grace abounds and whose love is greater than any singing of it.
In his wonderful little book The Will of God, Leslie Weatherhead points out how glibly we often “identify as the will of God something for which a man would be locked up in jail, or put in a criminal lunatic asylum.” Such errors must be confronted and challenged with more insightful, kinder, gentler theology.
Neither will we say that God requires us to believe that the suffering we are undergoing is, in some mysterious way that we don’t understand, actually good. Nowhere in scripture do we read that all things are good. What we do read is that God is, in all things, working for good (Romans 8:28). That is a huge difference. God can take even the most painful, most horrible acts or experiences of human beings and make good come from them -- and that is to be celebrated, but it is celebratory only to the degree that the horror from which this good has come was truly a horror.
And, of course, we will not say that everything happens for a reason, or that it could be worse, or any number of meaningless and even hurtful clichés that make us feel better for having said them but often only hurt those to whom they are said.
No, when we answer the question “Where is your God?” for others or for ourselves, we will answer with the assurance of the psalmist, who knows -- from experience far-off in the past and as recent as yesterday -- that God is always closest to those who suffer. God’s voice is always loudest and God’s will is often most clearly articulated in the silent suffering of those who are oppressed. In the streets, in the ghettos, in the hospitals and medical clinics, under the bridge, in the homeless shelter, on the battlefield, or standing in line at the soup kitchen -- wherever we see people in pain, God is there. And if we want to stand with God, we’d better get up and go there too.
As Rabbi Harold S. Kushner said in Overcoming Life’s Disappointments, “God is the light shining in the midst of darkness, not to deny that there is darkness in the world but to reassure us that we do not have to be afraid of the darkness because darkness will always yield to light. As theologian David Griffin puts it, God is all-powerful. His power enables people to deal with events beyond their control, and He gives us the strength to do those things because He is with us.”
SECOND THOUGHTS
by Mary Austin
Galatians 3:23-29
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has made history, securing enough delegates to become the presumptive Democratic candidate for president. As she crossed this particular finish line, the biggest gender barrier in American life seemed to fall. CNN reported: “Regardless of party persuasion, Hillary Clinton’s victory is the definition of historic: She became the first female presidential nominee of a major political party. Her chances of becoming president -- the first woman head of state in America’s 238-year history -- are now much closer to reality. The impact of the moment was not lost on Clinton.” Before her speech that night, Clinton posted a picture of herself with a little girl on Instagram, saying: “To every little girl who dreams big: Yes, you can be anything you want -- even president. Tonight is for you.”
One might think that in politics at least, we have reached the vision Paul lays out for the Galatians. “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female,” Paul proclaims, announcing our new identity in Christ. Each category he mentions is a hierarchical one -- one half of the pair dominates the other. Writing to a world organized by hierarchy, Paul says that our common roots in Christ end the world’s divisions. If our faith connects us, and if we follow the example of Jesus, then the divisions have lost their power.
For Clinton, gender has added interesting complexities to the race. USA Today notes that research shows female candidates have to be not just qualified but also likeable, compared to male candidates who just have to be capable of doing the job: “For instance, a report this spring by the Barbara Lee Family Foundation found that voters are willing to support a male candidate they don't like if they think he is qualified. But they are less likely to support a female candidate they think is qualified unless they also like her. ‘For women candidates, likability is linked to electability, and that’s not the case for men,’ says Adrienne Kimmell, executive director of the nonpartisan institute.” We assume that women are more trustworthy than men, but penalize them more harshly if we don’t think that’s the case. “Male candidates face lower expectations that they will be honest, and voters are quicker to forgive them when they aren't.” The article adds, “Clinton faces the same dilemma as other female candidates in trying to come across as decisive and impassioned without being accused of being shrill.”
Male candidates have more leeway, observes Mark Joseph Stern in Slate, noting that “in any nominating race featuring a female candidate, there will always be a Bernie Sanders -- a male alternative whose gender allows him to do everything his female opponent cannot.... [Sanders] and Clinton have mostly minor policy disputes, but Sanders is heralded as a true progressive, even though his most liberal proposals are politically dead in the water. Still, Sanders’ angry populist demagogue shtick goes over extraordinarily well with young liberals, especially white ones, who are weary of horse-trading incremental change. As Rebecca Traister recently noted, Clinton would be committing political suicide if she were equally loud and indignant and unkempt and fiery. ‘No one likes a woman who yells loudly about revolution, Traister wrote.”
The Huffington Post suggested that there are three kinds of reactions to Clinton’s presumptive nomination. For many, both women and men, there was out and out joy, and a sense of history being made. A middle group used the hashtag #GirlIGuessImWithHer, an adaptation of supporters’ jubilant #ImWithHer. The hashtag #GirlIGuessImWithHer “quickly took off Tuesday night, spreading through Twitter like a giant shoulder shrug. The general consensus is that while Clinton may not bring the revolution progressives have been hoping for -- and while many have serious issues with things she has said and done -- many left-leaning, pro-Sanders Democrats are willing to fall in line and unite.” A third group is uniting under #HillNo. “Some progressives are so anti-Clinton that they flirt with the idea of voting for Trump -- or have even openly declared that they’re on the #TrumpTrain. They think a Trump presidency could create the conditions needed for a political revolution. They prefer a shock to the system to politics as usual.” And then there are Republicans, also on the #HillNo bandwagon for an array of reasons.
If Paul were writing today, he might highlight other social dividing lines. Would he tell us that there is no longer rich or poor? Citizen or immigrant? Straight or gay?
This past weekend’s terror attack in a gay-friendly Orlando nightclub has pointed out the danger still faced by LGBTQ Americans, even with dramatic advances in gay rights. The shooter, who claimed to operating for ISIS, targeted gay people. The New York Times reports that “Mateen’s father told NBC News that his son had been angry when he saw two men kissing. The East Orlando Post reported that Mr. Mateen had researched at least one other gay club in Orlando before attacking Pulse.” The gay community is painfully aware of the high cost of violence directed their way: “That includes the days when gay people worried about being branded ‘faggots’ and beaten, whether in small towns or in gay centers like New York; the 1973 arson attack on a gay bar in New Orleans that left 32 people dead; the 1998 murder of Matthew Shepard. All are cultural touchstones for the community.” This weekend’s attack is more dramatic and more deadly, but violence has been common this year. “Movement leaders, speaking anecdotally, said they sensed an increase in violence against gay people this year -- perhaps, some said, because of the divisive presidential campaign, or because of high-profile policy fights like the one over the Obama administration’s recent directive requiring schools to allow transgender students to use the bathrooms of their choice.” After this attack has faded from mind for many of us, the gay community will have to remember, and grief will continue.
Violence is never far from the minds of people in the LGBTQ community. Author Martha Spong wrote recently about how rare it is to feel safe enough to be herself. On a trip to Maine, she said, “my wife and I have had the odd experience of feeling both safe with the family and safe in the Portland area, safe enough to touch each other in public, even to exchange a restrained kiss or two.... I’ll confess, the first moment in which we relaxed our guard this weekend, I thought, ‘I wonder who is looking?’ We watch ourselves at home in Pennsylvania, where we always watch how we interact with each other, where we both work in churches where some people disapprove of our ‘lifestyle,’ where we know we are not safe, not really.”
Paul writes that divisions have ended, and hierarchies are overturned in Jesus. He writes about what God has already accomplished, and humanity has yet to realize.
Curiously, grief is one of the places where divisions are erased and tears form a common bond. As we mourn and tears fall, there is no longer young or old, rich or poor. At funerals in the coming weeks, we can pray that grieving parents and stunned friends will find common bonds. Grandparents and drag queens may laugh together over jello at funeral lunches. Pastors will be schooled by young LGBTQ people, and our shared life will be enriched. It doesn’t erase this tragedy. It doesn’t begin to balance it out, but grace may bubble out of our dividing lines, until we come a step closer to what Paul has in mind. In Orlando, the Muslim community is being urged to donate blood in the wake of the terror attack. As the donated blood drips into the veins of those recovering from the attack, they will hold in their bodies the truth that there is no longer Muslim or Christian or atheist, no longer gay or straight, no longer male or female. May that be one small step toward making it so in our spirits, and in our communities too.
ILLUSTRATIONS
From team member Chris Keating:
Special Resources for Talking about the Orlando Shooting/Terrorist Attack
What to Say to Children
While many parents will make the choice to shield children from discussions about the Orlando shooting (or other terrorist-related attacks), it may be impossible to avoid any discussion of the topic. The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry offers these suggestions for talking to children about violence. Here is a quick summary:
* Listening is key. Create a time and place where children can ask questions. Don’t force children to talk until they are ready.
* Children may personalize these events. For example, they may have relatives in Florida or may remember that is where they went to Disney World.
* Some children may have difficulty verbalizing fears or questions. They may be more adept at drawing a picture, or playing with toys.
* Answer questions directly and honestly. Avoid stereotyping people or groups; be consistent and reassuring; don’t make unrealistic promises.
* Provide support by continuing similar routines, letting them play, and limiting news coverage.
*****
Should We Delay Talking to our Kids?
That can be a personal decision. But one specialist notes that they are probably already talking about it. After the terror attacks in Paris, Harold Koplewicz suggested that honesty is vital. “It’s very likely that your child will hear what happened,” Koplewicz said, “and its best that it comes from you so that you are able to answer any questions, convey the facts, and set the emotional tone.”
*****
Not in God’s Name
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks of England has written a profoundly important book that addresses the relationship between religion and violence. Not in God’s Name explores religious extremism, and provides theological responses to violence. “When religion turns men into murderers,” Sacks begins, “God weeps.” When violence is committed as an act of faith, “God speaks, sometimes in a still, small voice almost inaudible beneath the clamor of those claiming to speak on his behalf. What he says at such times is: Not in my name.”
***************
1 Kings 19:1-4 (5-7) 8-15a
What it Means to Find Zero Noise
According to the people at the Guinness Book of World Records, the quietest place in the world is Steve Orfield’s laboratory in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Orfield is an acoustic researcher who measures the quality of sounds for different market segments. His anechoic chamber -- a room that literally means “no-echo” -- is specially designed to provide what could be described as sheer silence. The six-sided room floats on springs in a concrete pit, and is surrounded by additional concrete chambers and cement walls at least ten feet thick.
Orfield emphasizes that in technical terms, the quietest place on Earth, like Cage’s symphony, isn’t actually silent. It’s really just a place where sound can’t reverberate -- the opposite of, say, a cathedral or a sports arena. Still, the Guinness distinction warrants that people often want to come by and visit. If nothing else, it’s a study in sensory deprivation. “We’ve offered to give anybody who will sit in there for 45 minutes in the dark a case of Guinness,” Orfield explains. “But no one’s ever taken us up. People are kind of frightened of the room.” Even he won’t do it. “If I sat in there for a half an hour, I would be uncomfortable. If I did it ten times in a row, I would still be uncomfortable.”
Researchers say complete silence is unnerving, and can be a shock to one’s auditory system. Silence may be golden for some, but tolerating long periods of silence can be demanding. For Elijah, the appearance of God in the quiet following the storm, the wind, and earthquake requires a calming stillness which renders him particularly attuned to the presence and mystery of God.
*****
1 Kings 19:1-4 (5-7) 8-15a
Moving Beyond our Comfort Zones
George Prochnik, author of the book In Pursuit of Silence, conducted research into silence and eventually landed in the basement of a Trappist monastery. In the cellar beneath the Trappist New Melleray Abbey in Iowa, Prochnik explored the meaning of silence. The monk who guided him to the place warmed Prochnik that the sound of silence might be so intense it would “take me out of my comfort zone.” The monk warned him, “Some people from big cities find themselves physically unable to remain in the chapel for even five minutes.” Yet the monks who retreat to the quiet place come again and again in search of that “sheer silence” which communicated God’s presence to Elijah in his time of spiritual despair.
*****
Psalm 42
Needing a Drink?
Deer aren’t the only ones panting during the hot summer months. According to CNN, so far this summer the number of children who have died as the result of being left in a hot car has more than tripled when compared to last year. It’s a disturbing trend, and a reminder of how easy it is to become distracted. For example, while sipping an iced tea at my local McDonald’s last week I noticed a flurry of police cars. Officers surrounded a car in the parking lot, responding to a call that a mother had left her small children in the car while interviewing for a job at the restaurant. When she returned 40 minutes later, police arrested the woman. The children received treatment by paramedics and were released to a family member. In some ways, spiritual thirst can emerge nearly as quickly. In his “Evangelism Coach” blog, evangelical writer Chris Walker describes spiritual thirst as a deep longing for God, often expressed by way of stories or yearning for healing, forgiveness, of spiritual self-care.
Blogger Karl Persson, writing for “The Inner Room,” carries the notion of spiritual thirst a bit further, and notes that “in a world looking for a pill for dehydration, there’s a better option -- there’s still hope for tasting the freshness of water.” His words are particularly apt for these dry summer days, especially following the tragic shooting in Orlando:
It is indeed an apt metaphor for the contemplative Christian life and all that that entails -- the inhabitance of scripture; the romance of silence; the strange holiness of the dark night; the God in the whirlwind; the wedding of the Lamb; all the things we long desperately for and then seem to miss, seem unable to experience. “My soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water” (Psalm 63, NRSVCE) says the psalmist, and our hearts beat in time with his -- until we grow bored and wander off and find some distraction or other to numb us, some vice to distract us, or worse still some virtue to recast as a frantic idol. “Thirst?” we say. “Who thirsts? Are not these the gods that brought us up out of Egypt?”
*****
Galatians 3:23-29
Seeking Unity in a Divided World
Paul’s argument for faith that is justified by grace in Galatians explores the new relationship offered in Jesus Christ -- a relationship where there is “no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free...” -- and is a compelling call to seek unity amidst divisions. Following the devastating shootings in Orlando, many were moved to displays of unity, even in a divided world. Mahmoud El-Awadi, a Muslim American, demonstrated this sort of unity by posting a photograph of his arm while donating blood for the victims of the shooting. The comment he posted along with this photograph calls us all to seek common unity:
-Yes, my name is Mahmoud, a proud Muslim American.
-Yes, I donated blood even though I can’t eat or drink anything ’cause I’m fasting in our holy month Ramadan, just like hundreds of other Muslims who donated today here in Orlando.
-Yes, I’m angry for what happened last night and all the innocent lives we lost.
-Yes, I’m sad, frustrated, and mad that a crazy guy claiming to be a Muslim did that shameful act.
-Yes, I witnessed the greatness of this country watching thousands of people standing in 92-degree sun waiting their turn to donate blood, even after they were told that the wait time is 5-7 hours.
-Yes, this is the greatest nation on earth, watching people from different ages including kids volunteering to give water, juice, food, umbrellas, sunblock. Also watching our old veterans coming to donate and next to them Muslim women in hijabs carrying food and water to donors standing in line.
-Yes, together we will stand against hate, terrorism, extremism, and racism.
-Yes, our blood all looks the same, so get out there and donate blood ’cause our fellow American citizens are injured and need our blood.
-Yes, our community in central Florida is heartbroken, but let’s put our colors, religions, ethnicity, sexual orientation, political views all aside so we can UNITE against those who are trying to hurt us.
*****
Luke 8:26-39
Legion: Making a Difference at Home
After Jesus released the demons that had plagued the man called Legion, his old neighbors found him sitting at the feet of Jesus, “clothed and in his right mind.” Yet this wasn’t so comforting for his friends; indeed, Luke tells us the entire community was seized by fear. It seems the sight of demons rushing into a herd of little piggies isn’t something you see every day. The memories of how the man used to torment them lingered as well. Apparently the man felt the same way, because he begged Jesus to let him get into the boat and go back to Galilee with Jesus. Instead, Jesus tells him to go and share the story of his healing.
Many who have struggled with traumatic events want to put the past behind them, and like the man who was healed simply move on to new experiences. In particular, veterans who return from war are struggling with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in record numbers. Sebastian Junger talked about his experience of PTSD after coming home from Afghanistan. Paralyzed by fear in a subway station, Junger is overwhelmed by a fear of dying:
I had no idea that what I’d just experienced had anything to do with combat; I just thought I was going crazy. For the next several months I kept having panic attacks whenever I was in a small place with too many people -- airplanes, ski gondolas, crowded bars. Gradually the incidents stopped, and I didn’t think about them again until I found myself talking to a woman at a picnic who worked as a psychotherapist. She asked whether I’d been affected by my war experiences, and I said no, I didn’t think so. But for some reason I described my puzzling panic attack in the subway. “That’s called post-traumatic stress disorder,” she said. “You’ll be hearing a lot more about that in the next few years.”
Isolation adds to the experience of PTSD, which is one reason why members of the Israeli military report low incidents of post-service stress. Because so many Israelis have served in the military, experience of trauma is not as isolated as it is in other countries. Junger notes that the shocking disconnect for young veterans returning home is how different their experience of the world has been from others. It’s hard to compare war to anything else, he notes. What’s often needed are homecoming celebrations oriented toward integrating vets back into communities. They are given a new mission -- a commissioning perhaps resembling the orders Jesus gives to the man who has been healed.
***************
From team member Ron Love:
1 Kings 19:1-4 (5-7) 8-15a
In a lengthy Washington Post article, Michelle Boorstein ponders if God is punishing the United States with the two candidates for the next presidential election. After quoting religious leaders from various religious perspectives, Boorstein wonders, “Could there be some divine cosmic force behind the fact that the last two candidates standing to run the world’s superpower are the least-liked White House contenders in American history?”
Application: In the land of Jezebel, we do need an Elijah.
*****
1 Kings 19:1-4 (5-7) 8-15a
It was always a mystery to scientists how birds could always find their way home, no matter where they were released. One example comes from a British naval bomber shot down in the North Sea in 1942. The only communication the crew had was a carrier pigeon. The bird, covered in oil from the crash, was released from the survivors’ raft and flew 120 miles across the ocean to its owner -- and a successful rescue attempt ensued. A study has found that birds are able to do this by using quantum mechanics for navigation. The birds have magnetic sensors that allow them to read the earth’s magnetic field, and they use this information to orient themselves for their flight home. The birds are able to “see” the earth’s magnetic field and fly through it.
Application: Elijah, as he stood at the mouth of the cave, was trying to read the earth’s magnetic spiritual field for his trip home.
*****
Galatians 3:23-29
In the news this past week was the story of a Hindu monastery volunteer being hacked to death with machetes by Muslims in Bangladesh. Nitya Ranjan Pandey, who was 60 years old and who had volunteered at the monastery for 40 years, was taking a walk when he was attacked. He was the fourth Hindu or Christian hacked to death in a week by Bangladeshi Islamists. Those being killed are religious minorities and academics in the majority Muslim nation.
Application: Paul cautions that one’s religion ought to always speak of equality, not discrimination.
*****
Galatians 3:23-29
In 1964 Cassius Clay converted from Christianity to Islam, and with that changed his name to Muhammad Ali. After his conversion Ali met with evangelist Billy Graham. Of that meeting Ali said, “I’ve always admired Mr. Graham, I’m Muslim and he’s a Christian.... I always said if I was a Christian, I’d want to be a Christian like him.”
Application: As Christians we need to live our lives with a sense of equality, so that others would want to be like us.
*****
Galatians 3:23-29
A religious news story that was widely reported, probably because of its irony, is that Noah’s ark almost sank this week. A replica of the ark was being towed out of a harbor in the Netherlands to be taken to South America for the Olympic Games, when the handlers lost control and it collided with a Norwegian naval vessel. The ark sustained a huge hole in the side of its hull.
Application: Though we live by faith, our journey will not be problem-free.
*****
Galatians 3:23-29
Jimmy Carter recently visited the Ark Encounter Park in Kentucky. He only made the visit because a good friend of his built the ark. The park features an ark 510 feet long and 80 feet wide, making it the largest free-standing timber-framed structure in the world. The park expounds creationism, believing the world was created 6,000 years ago. Carter believes the world is 4 billion years old, and said while at the park, “As a scientist, I believe in evolution.”
Application: Paul is clear that we must understand what we believe.
*****
Galatians 3:23-29
In a recent article, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman discussed a workshop he attended on inequality. The entire week was focused on the inequality experienced by individuals. During a coffee break, Krugman thought to himself that they also ought to be talking about horizontal inequality -- inequality experienced by groups of people. The most obvious horizontal inequality is race, and Krugman believes that racial inequality will determine the outcome of the next general election.
Application: Paul talked about the importance of equality.
*****
Luke 8:26-39
Mel Gibson, who produced and directed the movie The Passion of the Christ, is now preparing a sequel focusing on the resurrection. The Passion ended at the empty tomb; now the days following the resurrection will be presented. Randall Wallace, who wrote the screenplay for The Passion and will also write the new screenplay, said, “The Passion is the beginning, and there’s a lot more story to tell.”
Application: Legion, when healed, proclaimed the gospel message, for he knew there was a story to be told.
*****
Luke 8:26-39
A recent book that has become very popular is A Good Month For a Murder: The Inside Story of a Homicide Squad. The author, Del Quentin Wilber, embedded himself with the homicide squad of Prince George’s County, Maryland, just outside of Washington, D.C. In the book the detectives discuss a “red ball” murder -- the slaying of a transparently innocent victim that has attracted media attention and therefore “must be solved, and solved yesterday.”
Application: Everyone who came to Jesus for healing was a “red ball” case.
*****
Luke 8:26-39
Each Saturday the Washington Post has a column titled “Inspired Life” in which the inspirational lives of others are shared. Last week the paper reported on a homeless World War II veteran who was going to be buried alone, without anyone present, at Quantico National Cemetery. Serina Vine, who served in the Navy during World War II, was a radio intelligence operator. Since leaving the service, she became an unknown, homeless individual. When Maj. Jaspen Boothe learned of the upcoming unattended burial, she contacted veterans groups and asked for their support and attendance. She was hoping 20 people would show, only to discover that over 200 veterans came, along with a Marine honor guard and a band. In the eulogy the chaplain summarized the events of the ceremony with these words: “In the military we do not serve alone, therefore we should not die alone.”
Application: Jesus in his ministry demonstrated that no one is to be alone.
WORSHIP RESOURCES
by George Reed
Call to Worship
Leader: As a deer longs for flowing streams,
People: So our soul longs for you, O God.
Leader: My adversaries taunt me, saying, “Where is your God?”
People: Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you disquieted within me?
Leader: Hope in God, who is our help and our God.
People: O God, send out your light and your truth.
OR
Leader: God calls us to gather to worship and be fed.
People: We come seeking our God.
Leader: God is here and is always with us.
People: It is difficult to believe that sometimes.
Leader: Sometimes we find God only in the times of silence.
People: We will ask for faith to find God in all of life.
Hymns and Sacred Songs
“Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise”
found in:
UMH: 103
H82: 423
PH: 263
NCH: 1
CH: 66
LBW: 526
ELA: 834
W&P: 48
AMEC: 71
STLT: 273
Renew: 46
“There’s a Wideness in God’s Mercy”
found in:
UMH: 121
H82: 469, 470
PH: 298
NCH: 23
CH: 73
LBW: 290
ELA: 587, 588
W&P: 61
AMEC: 78
STLT: 213
“This Is My Father’s World”
found in:
UMH: 144
H82: 651
PH: 293
AAHH: 149
NNBH: 41
CH: 59
LBW: 554
ELA: 824
W&P: 21
AMEC: 47
“Be Thou My Vision”
found in:
UMH: 451
H82: 488
PH: 339
NCH: 451
CH: 595
ELA: 793
W&P: 502
AMEC: 281
STLT: 20
Renew: 151
“Open My Eyes, That I May See”
found in:
UMH: 454
PH: 324
NNBH: 218
CH: 586
W&P: 480
AMEC: 284
“Holy Spirit, Truth Divine”
found in:
UMH: 465
PH: 321
NCH: 63
CH: 241
LBW: 257
ELA: 398
“Trust and Obey”
found in:
UMH: 467
AAHH: 380
NNBH: 322
CH: 556
W&P: 443
AMEC: 377
“Near to the Heart of God”
found in:
UMH: 472
PH: 527
NNBH: 16
CH: 581
AMEC: 322
“Open Our Eyes, Lord”
found in:
CCB: 77
Renew: 91
“Holy Ground”
found in:
CCB: 5
Music Resources Key:
UMH: United Methodist Hymnal
H82: The Hymnal 1982 (The Episcopal Church)
PH: Presbyterian Hymnal
AAHH: African-American Heritage Hymnal
NNBH: The New National Baptist Hymnal
NCH: The New Century Hymnal
CH: Chalice Hymnal
LBW: Lutheran Book of Worship
ELA: Evangelical Lutheran Worship
W&P: Worship & Praise
AMEC: African Methodist Episcopal Church Hymnal
STLT: Singing the Living Tradition
CCB: Cokesbury Chorus Book
Renew: Renew! Songs & Hymns for Blended Worship
Prayer for the Day / Collect
O God who is closer to us than our own breath: Grant us the wisdom to know that you are always with us, and grant us the grace to be your presence for others; through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.
OR
You, O God, are closer to us than our own breath. Send your Spirit upon us that we might be aware of your constant presence. Give us the courage to act as your presence for those around us. Amen.
Prayer of Confession
Leader: Let us confess to God and before one another our sins, and especially our quickness to conclude that God is not with us.
People: We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. When things go wrong for us and we experience great hurt, we think that means you have deserted us. We have this idea that if you are with us then nothing bad can happen to us. We forget that even Jesus experienced terrible times and feelings of being left alone. Yet in the end, he experienced new life and glory. Help us to trust in your loving presence, even when we cannot sense it. So fill us with your Spirit that we trust you in all the times of our lives. Amen.
Leader: God is with us. God seeks us and seeks our good, even when things are going very wrong in life. Receive God’s love, and know that you are never alone.
Prayers of the People (and the Lord’s Prayer)
We praise you, O God, and worship you as the creator of all. You not only made all that is, but you also have filled everything with your presence and Spirit.
(The following paragraph may be used if a separate prayer of confession has not been used.)
We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. When things go wrong for us and we experience great hurt, we think that means you have deserted us. We have this idea that if you are with us then nothing bad can happen to us. We forget that even Jesus experienced terrible times and feelings of being left alone. Yet in the end, he experienced new life and glory. Help us to trust in your loving presence, even when we cannot sense it. So fill us with your Spirit that we trust you in all the times of our lives.
We give you thanks for the times when we are able to sense your presence. We thank you for your love that embraces us in the words and actions of your people. We thank you for the assurance that you are with us, even when we are unaware of you.
(Other thanksgivings may be offered.)
We pray for one another in our need, and especially for those who feel alone and deserted in life. Help us make you present to others through words and actions of true love and care.
(Other intercessions may be offered.)
All these things we ask in the name of our Savior Jesus Christ, who taught us to pray together, saying:
Our Father . . . Amen.
(or if the Lord’s Prayer is not used at this point in the service)
All this we ask in the Name of the Blessed and Holy Trinity. Amen.
Children’s Sermon Starter
Teach the children to find their pulse, either in their wrist or their neck. We can find our pulse and know that our hearts are there and working. Most of the time we don’t feel our hearts, but they are still there. Sometimes we are aware of God being with us. But even when we are not, God is there -- just like our hearts.
CHILDREN’S SERMON
All the Same in Christ
Galatians 3:23-29
Object: a bag of different colored marbles
Do you know what I have here? (Pour some of the marbles in your hand.) Marbles! (Hold them up one by one as you speak.) Are they alike or are they different? Yes, they all look very different. There are a lot of different colors; in fact, no two are exactly alike. Would you like to see them? (If appropriate, pass the marbles around for the children to examine them.) You may have one you like best -- perhaps you like one color better. Perhaps there’s one that just feels special when you hold it.
But the marbles aren’t really different. Even though they look different, no one marble is more special than any other. We use them all the same way when we play games. People are like marbles. At first we all look different. We are different sizes and colors. No two people are exactly alike. Even identical twins have different fingerprints. But you know what? When God looks at us, he doesn’t see the differences. We are all wonderful, special people to him. We’ve learned in our lessons that God even calls us his children.
It would be easy to decide that some people are better than others. Lots of people think that way. But in God’s eyes it doesn’t matter if you are a girl or a boy, rich or poor, tall or short. It doesn’t matter what color you are. You are one of God’s precious children, and so is the person sitting next to you. So is the person who is homeless. So is the person in jail. So is the person living in a village on the other side of the world.
One of Jesus’ biggest lessons was that we are to love our neighbors as ourselves. We are to love all people the same, just as God loves all of us the same. We are all God’s children, and we’ve learned that that makes us brothers and sisters to each other. It isn’t always easy to see the world the way that God does, but he can help us. We should ask him to help us see the things that make us the same and not the things that make us different.
Prayer: Help us, God, to love each other the way you do. Please show us that our differences are wonderful, but also help us remember that we are all equally special. Amen.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Immediate Word, June 19, 2016, issue.
Copyright 2016 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
