In this installment of The Immediate Word, team member Mary Austin contrasts Armstrong's proclamations with those of Jesus, and suggests that one indication of whether proclamation is true is a seamless consistency between words and actions. The disconnect between Armstrong's words and behavior for so many years may have been particularly egregious -- but Mary suggests that it's an issue that all of us must confront in our own lives too, for like Armstrong, we also are tempted to protect ourselves by weaving a web of lies both large and small. With Jesus, however, we need not worry about whether his words will be reflected in his life -- he offers us the ultimate in transparency, and we can see for ourselves the truth of his proclamation.
Team member Leah Lonsbury offers some additional thoughts on Richard Blanco's poem written for the presidential inauguration, and how it echoes the epistle text's discourse on how the various parts of the body all function together for the common good. Rather than Paul's vision of "the members of the body that seem to be weaker [as] indispensable," Leah notes that there are many on all sides of the public debate who engage in rejectionist rhetoric and divisive actions. But like Paul in his message to the Corinthian congregation -- who had been plagued by bickering and infighting -- Blanco shares a vision of an America with many members constituting a poetically diverse whole. Such an inclusive approach puts the lie to political debate in which perhaps the most appropriate physical image is that of antibodies fighting off infection. Leah points out that understanding our diversity and commonality -- and acting on it -- is crucial as we grapple with difficult issues that are certain to produce conflict in our own communities.
Why Now?
by Mary Austin
Luke 4:14-21
Timing is everything.
As everyone with access to the media knows by now, cyclist Lance Armstrong has admitted to using banned substances during his spectacular career in cycling. The seven Tour de France titles and the Olympic bronze medal are gone, erased from the record books as if they never existed, but the memories of the triumphant Lance in the yellow jersey linger in our minds. The excitement of the wins comes now with the realization that he cheated to win.
Most people are completely unsurprised by the admission of doping, but many are wondering: Why now? Why tell the truth now?
Lance in his interview with Oprah Winfrey and Jesus in the synagogue both have something to say, but the message and the messenger are very different.
THE WORLD
Lance Armstrong, famous as a seven-time winner of the Tour de France bicycle race, has finally admitted that all of his cycling victories were achieved with banned substances. After years of denying it, he finally admitted to doping in an interview with Oprah Winfrey.
Who was number two in those Tour de France races? Who came in fourth in that Olympic race and really deserved the bronze medal? Who knows? Those people have been cheated out of victories and medals that should have been theirs. Having your name added to the record book is no substitute for the flowers, the medal, the pictures, and the celebration with your family and friends on the day of the race. Lance cheated the people who should have won. He (along with plenty of other people) cheated the sport, and diminished the luster of cycling. He intimidated other people who tried to tell the truth, and sued a number of people to keep them quiet.
Why tell the truth now? Assorted commentators have offered a number of reasons, all speculative. To compete in triathlons? Because the statute of limitations on perjury has run out? Because he may have to give back endorsement and prize money? To redeem his public persona? To stay in the limelight on his own terms? Hard to know. The story is endlessly fascinating because we sense that there's something more, something we're not being told -- a gap between the words and the reality.
Bonnie D. Ford of ESPN.com found a lack of sincerity and humility in Armstrong's interview with Oprah Winfrey: "It was about what it is always about with Lance Armstrong: hubris and control, the same tightly intertwined strands of his DNA that convinced him he would never be exposed, that the dozens and dozens of people privy to his pyramid scheme would remain muzzled forever.... I will start by saying that I don't believe for a minute that he was clean in his comeback." Ford adds: "Armstrong exerted the last bit of leverage he had left in public life by going big-picture pop-culture first. He decided to take aim at hearts and minds rather than making the kind of detailed confession to legal and anti-doping authorities that would have advanced the plot and made a small start on freeing him up to lead the rest of his life. It was a delusional move, not to mention an utterly backward one. Armstrong is a toppled despot, a statue pulled off his pedestal, but his legs are still moving reflexively in the rubble. By force of lifetime habit, he's still trying to shape his own narrative." [See all of her comments at espn.go.com.]
After years of listening to Armstrong claim determinedly that he did not ever use banned substances, it's hard to believe his equally determined claims now. It's hard to believe the message when the messenger has already shown his disdain for the truth. Bonnie Ford of ESPN.com adds: "The one absolute truth that has emerged about Armstrong over the past 15 years, much of which I spent observing him at close range, is that he is one of the world's most gifted actors." It's hard to believe there's anything sincere in this because we've so rarely heard the truth before.
THE WORD
In contrast, Jesus comes to his hometown synagogue, and the people there know exactly who he is. They've watch him grow up, they know his parents, they know his habits and quirks. Word about him is starting to spread, but at home, he's still the carpenter's kid. He reads from the scroll of the prophet Isaiah, announcing that God's favor has come to the poor, the blind, the oppressed, and the captive. Their reaction to him comes in next week's lectionary selection, but Jesus can say what he does because they know who he is.
"Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing," Jesus says, after reading from Isaiah's great vision of restoration for all the downtrodden. And then he sits down. That's all he says -- all he needs to say because he is not just delivering the message, he is the message. Jesus is the living embodiment of the words he has to say.
As Ernest Hess writes in Feasting on the Word [Year C, Vol. 1, p. 287], these verses "form his purpose or agenda or mission statement for his ministry." All three synoptic gospels tell this story, but only Luke places it at the beginning of Jesus' ministry, as the announcement of who he is. As Linda McKinnish Bridges also writes in Feasting on the Word [same page cited above], "These words had been attached to the description of the Messiah who was to come; and [the people] were waiting... He is the one they have been waiting to come all their lives, and their grandparents' lives, and the generations before them. The carpenter's son is the Messiah."
Jesus stirs up a strong reaction from the people who hear him, but it's not because they don't believe him. His announcement of who he is may be startling, but they know it's true. The messenger and the message are the same.
CRAFTING THE SERMON
"Today," Jesus says, "this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing." Today.
The sermon might look at what God is doing today. Right now. If we work in a congregational setting, we may have gotten used to taking a while to get God's work done. The committees and the governing boards have to meet and think and approve things before they happen, and we have to work around a long-held tradition here and an event already on the calendar there. Is there anything we can do for God today? Do we still have a sense of immediacy about God's work?
Or, the sermon might look at the truth that this scripture has not yet been fulfilled in a practical sense. Jesus is proclaiming what God is doing through him, announcing it as already underway. Yet all these years later, the poor and the oppressed and the captives still exist. I wonder how we, as Jesus' followers, embody his message in the way he did. I fear that I'm more like Lance than Jesus, with my words and my actions at odds, instead of seamlessly aligned as they were for Jesus. How might we get ourselves in sync, so what we say and what we do are (more) perfectly aligned?
The sermon might also look at the reality of the systems that keep people poor, or captive to unsafe neighborhoods, or oppressed by low-wage jobs. Here's another place to look at the gap between what we say and what we do. Are our clothes and our cars made by people who make a fair wage? Does our buying and investing benefit anyone besides ourselves?
The sermon might also look at the power of the Holy Spirit, as we recall that Jesus was "filled with the power of the Holy Spirit" when he came to town. Can we say the same? Do we want to? The power of the Holy Spirit is unpredictable, and it's often easier to go with our own power, which is much tamer and more easily subdued when necessary.
Or, the sermon might look at where we're rooted. Jesus comes to the synagogue on the sabbath "as was his custom." Part of his clarity about his work comes because he's rooted in God, and returns to worship and pray regularly. He can be who he is, and say what he says, because he's deeply connected with God. The messenger and the message are the same because they both come from the same place. May it be, by grace, that we can say the same.
*****
Additional resources on the current events topic:
There have been hundreds of columns written by commentators on various aspects of the Armstrong affair which an internet search will allow you to browse through, but in addition to the piece by ESPN.com cycling writer Bonnie Ford that Mary cites, here are several other particularly valuable reactions:
* Bracing columns from the New Yorker's Michael Specter and the Washington Post's Melinda Henneberger , who take a dim view of Armstrong's pattern of lying and reserve special disdain for the way he played on the emotion generated by his feel-good story of cancer survival and highly visible foundation work.
* Reviews of the Armstrong interview by Yahoo's Dan Wetzel, the Nation's Dave Zirin, and Sports Illustrated.com media critic Richard Deitsch, whoconclude that Armstrong did little to rehabilitate his tattered reputation by revealing himself as a coldly calculating bully (Zirin refers to him as the Tony Soprano of cycling) and that Oprah Winfrey was the big winner.
* An interesting mea culpa from noted author Buzz Bissinger, who acknowledges that his full-throated defense of Armstrong as recently as this summer in a Newsweek cover story has somewhat damaged his own credibility.
* Insightful first-person perspectives from some of the people who have long tried to tell the truth about Armstrong, and whose lives were completely turned upside-down by his vicious intimidation tactics -- author/journalist David Walsh, former teammate Tyler Hamilton, Betsy Andreu (the wife of another former teammate), and Kathy LeMond (the wife of former Tour de France winner Greg LeMond, who has had a particularly contentious relationship with Armstrong)
ANOTHER VIEW
Many Members, One Body
by
Leah Lonsbury
1 Corinthians 12:12-31a
In poet Richard Blanco's inaugural poem, "One Today", the country awakes in its many manifestations. It begins:
One
sun rose on us today, kindled over our shores,
peeking
over the Smokies, greeting the faces
of
the Great Lakes, spreading a simple truth
across
the Great Plains, then charging across the Rockies.
One
light, waking up rooftops, under each one, a story
told
by our silent gestures moving behind windows.
The people awake too -- "my face, your face, millions of faces in morning's mirrors, each one yawning to life, crescendoing into our day."
One sun, one light, one day we share. One " 'I have a dream,' we keep dreaming" and one "impossible vocabulary of sorrow" over the twenty empty desks of students who will continue to be absent. And yet we can catch a reflection of their light, Blanco seems to be saying, from the park benches where mothers "watch children slide into the day."
One ground in which we are rooted, through which we do our work. One wind, our breath, that mingles the dust from desert places and city streets. One sky that holds the stretch of our human experiences and one hope -- "a new constellation waiting for us to map it, waiting for us to name it -- together."
Millions of faces. One day. One breath. One hope that must be sought and named together, because we are all parts of one body living one life -- together. In his inaugural poem, Blanco is sounding an awful lot like Paul:
"For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body -- Jews or Greeks, slaves or free -- and we were all made to drink of one Spirit" (1 Corinthians 12:12-13).
Many members, one body. This is how we are the ongoing incarnation of the One.
"But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as God chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be?" (1 Corinthians 12:18-19).
All around us are shouting voices of those who continue to take their stand as single members, and so the body is far from being the poetically diverse whole, the many-membered one. They forget, we forget, that there is no body when we demand that everything serve and benefit us, that laws only be made to protect our own interests, and that decisions be swayed for the sole purpose of defeating the other. A soapbox can be a very lonely place to stand, especially when it is built in anger and fear of the other and when it grows the damaging gap between members of the one body.
In his second inaugural address, President Obama called for an end to this: "We cannot mistake absolutism for principle, or substitute spectacle for politics, or treat name-calling as reasoned debate."
We must remember, Mr. Obama reminded the crowd, that we are led by a vision of equality that calls us to journey together, that names us as one people who must seek their good together or not at all:
That is our
generation's task -- to make these words, these rights, these
values -- of Life, and Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness -- real
for every American. Being true to our founding documents does not
require us to agree on every contour of life; it does not mean we
will all define liberty in exactly the same way, or follow the same
precise path to happiness. Progress does not compel us to settle
centuries-long debates about the role of government for all time --
but it does require us to act in our time.... We must act, knowing
that our work will be imperfect. We must act, knowing that today's
victories will be only partial, and that it will be up to those who
stand here in four years, and forty years, and four hundred years
hence to advance the timeless spirit once conferred to us in a spare
Philadelphia hall.
We still hear single members shouting to the detriment of the body, but all around us, we can also see members acting for the body.
Twenty children and six teachers will be marked absent today and forever in Connecticut, says Blanco, but in New York, Governor Andrew Cuomo, a self-described gun owner, managed to pass legislation through the GOP-controlled Senate and Democrat-dominated Assembly that enacts the country's toughest gun laws to date. He did this in the first week of the new session. Lawmakers in at least ten other states are already considering new regulations of guns and ways to reduce gun violence in the early days of their 2013 session.
Only 33 days after the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School, gun control flew through what one White House official called "a time warp," transforming what was a politically off-limits issue to the top of the administration's agenda
In the meetings of the task group led by Vice-President Joe Biden, common ground for the common good was the aim. This included conversations with pro-gun groups. "[Biden] wasn't challenging their positions," said an official. "He was looking for space between their positions and where we are -- space where things can happen."
Biden called on the moral authority of clergy with whom he met to support the task group's work, and he talked with family members of shooting victims to gain the wisdom of those advocating for gun control. Biden thanked these families for their actions and expressed his regret that he did not take similar action to push for reforms in the aftermath of the accident that killed his young wife and daughter 40 years ago this December 18th. The Washington Post reports on this...
One of the participants was Lonnie Phillips, whose stepdaughter Jessica Ghawi was killed in last summer's movie-theater massacre in Aurora, Colorado. Phillips said Biden's comments left him and his wife, Sandy, feeling that "we weren't there just to be used as an emotional attachment to what he was doing. We felt like he understood, and we were there for a reason," said Phillips, who is working with the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.
In meetings with executives whose companies produce violent video games, Biden was less sympathetic...
When several executives argued that games can have positive, educational value, but then added with certainty that there could be no negative effects, Biden snapped, "Don't give me that malarkey," according to a participant.
In sessions with NRA groups, Biden warned that the gun control tide was turning, and they should be ready to swim with and not against it. One participant, Richard Feldman, president of the Independent Firearm Owners Association, reported:
[Biden] said that he had had a meeting with the interfaith community and those that had always been on the pro-gun side had changed, the evangelicals and Pentecostals.... What he was saying is, your support is eroding.... This issue is moving and we ought to get on board.
The task group gathered many groups representing many interests with the well-being and safety of the nation in mind. In the end, the president acted on the 19 executive orders Biden recommended, and four more were added before they were presented to the public. At the accompanying press conference, President Obama said: "If there's even one thing we can do, if there's one life we can save, we must act."
Connecticut's sorrow is now the business of New York lawmakers and the President of the United States, because "If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it" (1 Corinthians 12:26). Twenty students will be marked absent, and their families will continue to grieve. But so many others will slide into the new day as their mothers watch from park benches, like Blanco reminds us. We share the vocabulary of grief, but we must also share a vocabulary of hope and action for the one day that is ours, the one body to which we are called.
That hope and action is laid out by Jesus in our passage from Luke's gospel today, echoed in Paul's teachings on how the body must treat its most vulnerable members (vv. 22-25), and reflected in these words from President Obama's inaugural address:
And we must be a source of hope to the poor, the sick, the marginalized, the victims of prejudice -- not out of mere charity, but because peace in our time requires the constant advance of those principles that our common creed describes: tolerance and opportunity; human dignity and justice.
May it be so with us, "millions of faces in morning's mirrors, each one yawning to life, crescendoing into our day."
ILLUSTRATIONS
In the first of his two-part interview with Oprah Winfrey, Lance Armstrong admitted more than two dozen times that he was the ringleader of an elaborate doping scheme on the U.S. Postal Service-sponsored cycling team.
When asked by Winfrey if he used banned substances, EPO, blood doping and transfusions, testosterone, cortisone, and human growth hormones for all seven of his Tour de France wins, Armstrong replied "yes."
Armstrong gave the impression that it was justifiably wrong when he said, "I went and looked up the definition of a cheat. And the definition is to gain an advantage on a rival or a foe. I didn't view it that way. I viewed it as a level playing field."
If one must cheat to level the playing field, then maybe one should decide not to play. When Ezra read the Pentateuch to the people, his purpose was not to level the playing field but to lift the bar even higher.
*****
This year marks the 100th anniversary of Grand Central Station in New York City. When it opened in 1913, it was one of the finest examples of Beaux Arts architecture. It is a spectacular public space with marble floors, tiled arches, ornate staircases, and even sculpture inspired by Greek and Roman mythology.
Jessica Halem, a spokesperson for the Municipal Art Society, said, "The whole point was that regular people would feel like they were in a cathedral."
When Jesus taught in the synagogues and the regular people heard his words of wisdom so beautifully addressed to them, they too must have felt as if they were in a cathedral.
*****
Television manufacturers are in a heated race to produce larger and larger television screens. But there is one big problem among the competitors, and that is that the larger the screen, the farther back you must sit from to keep the image from being distorted. The ideal viewing distance is no more than three times the height of your screen. This has literally pushed present viewers back against the wall.
In an attempt to address this problem, Sony is introducing the "ultrahigh-definition" television. With nearly 8.3 million pixels -- four times more than a standard high-definition TV, viewers of the new the "4K" TV can now sit a third closer than before. Sony CEO Kazu Hirai, speaking at the Las Vegas International Consumer Electronics Show, said, "I hope you can see that 4K is not the future, it's now."
When people listened to Jesus teach in the synagogue they did not have to sit far back but were up close and personal, for there was no distorting the image of his words.
*****
The Lance Armstrong story isn't the only one in the headlines this past week that addresses the disconnect between what is real and what isn't -- there was also the bizarre tale of star Notre Dame football player Manti Te'o and the revelation that the girlfriend who he claimed had died within days of his grandmother earlier this fall never existed. The entire episode is still being unraveled, but it appears that Te'o was the victim of an elaborate ruse in which he was "catfished", a verb derived from the recent movie and new MTV television series. In a lengthy interview with ESPN's Jeremy Schaap, Te'o denied participating in the hoax though he did admit to lying to his family about having met the girl in person, which led to false stories being further spread by his father. Nevertheless, it appears that many of his teammates had inferred some time ago that the girlfriend did not exist. While the entire affair has attracted a great deal of media attention, some commentators are appalled that Te'o and his fake tragedy received more interest from the media and the Notre Dame administration than the very real tragedy involving a young woman who committed suicide after reportedly being assaulted by a football player and then bullied to keep quiet.
There's a common link between the Armstrong and Te'o stories -- and that's how easy it is to flummox the media and the public when we desperately want to believe in the stories that are being peddled. We are especially vulnerable to heartwarming, emotional stories that touch the deeper level of myth -- like Armstrong overcoming cancer to win the world's most grueling bike race, and Te'o overcoming the death of two women close to him to lead his team to an inspirational victory. But of course, that's what often makes them dangerous. When we truly want to believe something, it's easy to ignore or downplay things that in retrospect should be obvious red flags -- and that's exactly what makes us vulnerable to false proclamation. As Bonnie Ford penetratingly notes: "Beware of myth-making. That's what wrong-footed so many about Armstrong in the first place." And that disconnect between myth and real life is precisely what fascinates noted author Malcom Gladwell about the Te'o story. In an e-mail dialogue with Chuck Klosterman), Gladwell is more interested in why the public bought this whole business in the first place than he is with what Te'o did or didn't know -- and he delves into the mythic narrative aspect of it, marveling at the genius of its weaving together of three separate modern inspirational motifs. Armstrong also used mythic narratives for his own ends -- trumpeting the tale of beating cancer himself, as well as the fundraising work of his foundation, to forge strong popularity with the general public -- which led to one commentator comparing Armstrong treating supporters drawn by his charitable efforts as "human shields" while he sought to protect his secrets. Of course, true proclamation has no secrets... but we need to beware of false proclamation precisely because it tells us what we want to hear -- something that we rarely can say about Jesus.
*****
Thanks to comedian Stephen Colbert, we now have a new word in the English language. It is "truthiness."
Truthiness is usually defined as "the quality of seeming to be true according to one's intuition, opinion, or perception without regard to logic, factual evidence, or the like." Or "adhering to concepts or claims that one wishes or believes to be true without regard to whether they are actually true or not." People who rely on truthiness make claims to the truth of a thing because the want it to be true or believe that it should be true, without even looking for evidence or facts to see if it is true.
Probably one of the most famous and far-reaching examples of the power of truthiness was the claim, which for years was accepted as absolute fact, that spousal abuse and violence toward women skyrocketed on Super Bowl Sunday.
This was believed to be the case for decades -- until researchers actually went to hotlines and emergency rooms and counted the calls that came in on Super Bowl Sundays, and determined that not only did the number of cases not spike on those days, they actually declined to below average.
*****
On November 30, 2012, WGN News in Chicago breathlessly reported a plane crash at King and 29th Street downtown. The station's traffic helicopter captured the scene, and morning anchors Larry Potash and Robin Baumgarten reported the crash from the news desk and even reported that there were injuries.
The only problem with the report was that it wasn't true. It turns out the crash and fire was a special effects stunt being filmed for the NBC show Chicago Fire. Following the false report the Chicago Fire Department sent out a tweet to clarify that the crash was a simulation and to disregard the news report.
To their credit, the news anchors owned up to the error and even made it into a running gag, showing film clips from Godzilla and warning those at the Navy Pier to get off the ferris wheel.
*****
After news of the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School broke early Dec. 14, media outlets rushed to be the first with new details. Unfortunately, their hunger for additional information spawned many false reports. Here are some of the worst errors:
* Sandy Hook's shooter was possibly a father of a student. Suspected shooter Adam Lanza, 20, didn't have children.
* There was a second gunman, possibly in military fatigues, who was put in the back of a police car. The second shooter was never identified.
* The shooter's mother was a teacher at the elementary school. It was widely reported that the shooter had targeted his mother and her class. But Nancy Lanza was found shot dead in her home, and the school's superintendent said she never worked there.
* The Sandy Hook shooter killed his father, possibly in New Jersey, before driving to the school. Adam Lanza's father Peter was alive at his Connecticut home 40 miles away from Newtown. It was his mother who was his first victim.
* Adam Lanza's brother Ryan was the shooter. Many outlets showed pictures of Ryan and said it was "confirmed" he was the shooter, but he took to Facebook and defended himself. Authorities later said that Ryan was working and was not a suspect. Some outlets have speculated that Adam was carrying Ryan's identification during the shooting.
* The school buzzed the shooter into the building. In its Saturday print edition, the New York Times erroneously reported that detail, citing an unnamed law enforcement official. The paper of record retracted the information.
Getting the story right in the midst of a horrific tragedy is difficult, and news outlets were desperate to get the story out to audiences hungry for details.
"In the Twitter age, the pressure is worse than ever to be fast -- it's become more difficult," New York Times standards editor Greg Brock said. "Some of the pressure is coming from readers. If they see a headline on a website, they start looking for a complete and fully reported story from us, and they protest if they don't find it."
But we shouldn't accept these kind of errors as the norm, according to columnist Eric Deggans at the Tampa Bay Times. "Simply accepting that there is no solution for reporting huge chunks of a major story incorrectly in the moment sounds like a forward-looking acceptance of social media's impact," Deggans said. "But it's really embracing a path which could destroy the news industry."
*****
You probably noticed that the world didn't end on December 21, 2012. It turns out the Mayan calendar never really said that it would. The solar/lunar cycle ended, but the world didn't.
But even if the Mayans had predicted the end of the world, they would not have been alone. Such predictions have been happening just about since the beginning of the world. Here are just a few that are listed by your friendly Wikipedia):
634 BC -- Many Romans believed that Rome would end on the 120th anniversary of its founding.
70 -- The Essenes believed that the Jewish revolt against Rome signaled the end of days.
793 -- Spanish monk Beatus of Liebana predicted that the world would end on April 6.
1000 -- Pope Sylvester II predicted the Millennium Apocalypse, with riots in Europe and pilgrims flooding Jerusalem.
1186 -- John of Toledo predicted the end of the world based on the alignment of the planets.
1600 -- Martin Luther predicted the end of the world no later than 1600.
1936, 1943, 1972, and 1975 -- all predicted to be the end of the world by Herbert W. Armstrong, founder of the World Wide Church of God.
2000 -- Peter Olivi (13th
WORSHIP RESOURCES
by George Reed
Call to Worship
Leader: The heavens are telling the glory of God;
People: and the firmament proclaims God's handiwork.
Leader: The law of God is perfect, reviving the soul;
People: the decrees of God are sure, making wise the simple;
Leader: the precepts of God are right, rejoicing the heart;
People: the commandment of God is clear, enlightening the eyes.
OR
Leader: Draw near and hear God's word for us today.
People: We come seeking the truth of God.
Leader: God is among us to show us the way to life.
People: We are tired of following false paths.
Leader: God's ways are trustworthy and true.
People: We wait on God and God's truth for us.
Hymns and Sacred Songs
"O For a Thousand Tongues to Sing"
found in:
UMH: 57/58/59
H82: 493
PH: 466
AAHH: 184
NNBH: 23
NCH: 42
CH: 5
LBW: 559
ELA: 886
W&P: 96
AMEC: 1
Renew: 32
"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: 168
"Great Is Thy Faithfulness"
found in:
UMH: 140
AAHH: 158
NNBH: 45
NCH: 423
CH: 86
ELA: 733
W&P: 72
AMEC: 84
Renew: 249
"Pues Si Vivimos" ("When We Are Living")
found in:
UMH: 356
PH: 400
NCH: 499
CH: 536
ELA: 639
W&P: 415
"Standing on the Promises"
found in:
UMH: 374
AAHH: 373
NNBH: 257
CH: 552
AMEC: 424
"Break Thou the Bread of Life"
found in:
UMH: 599
PH: 329
AAHH: 334
NNBH: 295
NCH: 321
CH: 235
LBW: 515
ELA: 665
W&P: 209
"Wonderful Words of Life"
found in:
UMH: 600
AAHH: 332
NNBH: 293
NCH: 319
CH: 323
W&P: 668
AMEC: 207
"Blessed Jesus, at Thy Word"
found in:
UMH: 596
H82: 440
PH: 450
LBW: 248
Renew: 93
"God Is So Good"
found in:
CCB: 75
"Lord, I Life Your Name on High"
found in:
CCB: 36
Renew: 4
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 and in whom there is no shadow of deceit: Grant us the courage to live truthfully into our own reality that we may allow the presence of your Spirit to shine clearly in and through us; through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.
OR
We worship you, O God, for you are truth. You reveal yourself to us even though we are unable to comprehend your reality. Help us to also be transparent to you, to others, and to ourselves that your Spirit might be revealed in our lives. Amen.
Prayer of Confession
Leader: Let us confess to God and before one another our sins and especially the way we deceive ourselves and others.
People: We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. We have listened to many voices but seldom to your voice. We have believed the lies told us by society and have tried to gain status with things. We have repeated these lies to ourselves and to others by our actions as well as our words. Forgive us and open our eyes to your truth that we may live in freedom and joy forever. Amen.
Leader: God desires nothing more than that we should have abundant life. God waits only for us to desire to see and then God reveals the truth to us. Live in the joyous truth of our God.
Prayers of the People (and the Lord's Prayer)
We praise your name, O God, for you are true to it. You truly are the one who is, the one who will be.
(The following paragraph may be used if a separate prayer of confession has not been used.)
We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. We have listened to many voices but seldom to your voice. We have believed the lies told us by society and have tried to gain status with things. We have repeated these lies to ourselves and to others by our actions as well as our words. Forgive us and open our eyes to your truth that we may live in freedom and joy forever.
We give you thanks for all the ways in which you have revealed yourself and your truth to us. We thank you for the witness of scripture and for the witness of those who have lived in you in our midst.
(Other thanksgivings may be offered.)
We pray for ourselves and for all who seek to find truth and a reason for living. We pray especially for those of us who have lost our way in life, deceived by others and by ourselves.
(Other intercessions may be offered.)
All these things we ask in the name of our Savior Jesus Christ, who taught us to pray together, saying:
Our Father... Amen.
(or if the Lord's Prayer is not used at this point in the service)
All this we ask in the name of the Blessed and Holy Trinity. Amen.
Children's Sermon Starter
Talk to the children about things we might hear people say: boys don't cry; only girls play house; if you can't run fast, you can't play. Talk about how these things aren't really true, even if people do say them. One reason we come to church is to hear the truth from God. God loves us. God created us, and God said we were good.
CHILDREN'S SERMON
God's Prophets Tell the Truth
Luke 4:14-21
Object: a news story about the inauguration of the president
Good morning, boys and girls! Here is a newspaper story about the inauguration of our president. Every four years we elect a president, and this past week we officially installed him as president. Before the election last November, there were all kinds of predictions about who would win the election. Some people thought Mr. Romney would win, and some thought President Obama would win. Obviously, some were right and some were wrong. Predicting the future is not easy. People who prophesy about who will win and who will lose are often wrong.
Now, when God's prophets predict what will happen in the future, are they ever wrong? (let the children answer) No, they are never wrong, because God knows everything and he lets them know what to say. A long time before Jesus was born, the prophets of God told a lot of things about him. When he came into the world, all those predictions came true.
Once, when Jesus was preaching in his own home church, he read what one of the prophets said about him hundreds of years before he was born. Then he told the people that this prediction of that prophet was coming true right before their eyes. Do you think the people of his hometown believed him? (let them answer) No, they didn't believe him, but we know that what
he said was true.
Let's thank God for giving us real prophets who tell us the truth.
Prayer: Dear God, thank you for sending real prophets to your people who tell the truth about all things. We know that we can trust them because they have your word. Amen.
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The Immediate Word, January 27, 2013, issue.
Copyright 2013 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.
