Healing And Forgiveness
Sermon
Dancing The Sacraments
Sermons And Worship Services For Baptism And Communion
Call To Worship:
Jesus said, "Your faith has made you whole." Come, let us worship God our Healer.
Hymn: "Here, O My Lord, I See Thee"
(words: Horatius Bonar; music: Edward Dearle)
Children's Time:
"I choose Rebecca," Alice called. Sam shouted, "I take Bill." Alice chose, "Jean ... Tim ... Philip ..." Sam said, "Beth, Alex, Charles." So it continued, choosing sides for the game they would play. Carl was always the last one to be chosen, so today, before he heard his name called last, he left the field and returned home. "What happened?" asked his older brother, Jim, when he saw the sad look on Carl's face. "Last one chosen again," Carl mumbled. "Bummer," said his brother. "Hi, you are home early," Mother said, coming into the kitchen where the boys were drinking milk and eating apples. "What happened?" "Last one chosen again," Carl mumbled. "Bummer," said Mother, sympathetically. "You, too?" Carl asked, looking up in surprise. Mother explained, " 'Bummer' is the name given to the last lamb that is born and is rejected and so 'bums' milk from the other ewes, the mother sheep. Come sit with me and I will tell you a story." Carl finished his milk and sat beside his mother. She put her arm around Carl and said, "When I was your age, we lived on the farm, the same farm where Grandpa and Grandma live today. One day a 'bummer' was born. Of course he was very weak at first and I fed him with an eye dropper every twenty minutes. But at last he grew enough to drink from a bottle like a baby. He lived in the house with us because he needed so much care. Sometimes he thought he was a person. But at last he grew big enough to live outside in the barnyard with the other lambs. Bummer never forgot me. Whenever I was outside, Bummer would race to me. And whenever I felt sad or small or lonely, I remembered Bummer and ..." When the telephone rang, Mother got up to answer it. "Really?" she laughed. When Carl heard his mother laughing, he asked, "Who is it?" Mother held her hand over the mouth piece and replied, "It's Grandpa. A new runt lamb has just been born and he wondered if you would have time to take care of him." Carl grinned and took the telephone. "Hi, Grandpa. Yes! And I'll name him 'Bummer.' "
Talk Together:
Why did Carl name the lamb "Bummer"? Have you ever felt "left out" or less than you want to be, like a "Bummer"? (Dismiss the children with prayer.)
Prayer Of Confession:
We are tempted to pray stones into bread, but Jesus said, "One does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God." Forgive us, Lord, and feed us. Amen.
Words Of Assurance:
Jesus said, "This is my body, given for you. Take, eat. You are forgiven." Amen.
Psalter Reading: Psalm 122
Old Testament: l Kings 19:4--9
Epistle: Acts 27:33--36
New Testament: Luke 24:30--35
Sermon:
Our text for today is a familiar story. The disciples, sad and lonely at the death of Jesus, are met by a stranger whom they invite into their home to eat together. When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him.
"Then their eyes were opened" reminds me of Jesus healing the blind. In the breaking of bread in the sacrament of communion there is healing and forgiveness. It is what the church is all about.
For years I was angry at the church in which I grew up. I was taught its doctrine but not what lay behind the doctrine - God's love, healing, and feeding. What I was taught and what I experienced were not the same, and as soon as I was able, I rejected that particular church but carried its wounds and my anger.
Years later, attending a Wednesday Holy Communion worship service, the preacher preached a sermon on the Reformation. For me it was a trip to the Past, the place where only thorns and weeds grew. As I listened I began to feel more and more agitated, and I did not know why. Returning to my apartment I sat down to reflect, to meditate, to discern my distress. I was, however, too upset to discover the reason and only wept, but tears are healing. They ask, "What is going on here?" They bring awareness. Later that day I invited Jesus into my faith imagination, explaining what had happened, and asking his help. Then I realized that my church had taught me what they believed would "save" me. They had fulfilled their commitment. Yet because they were only human, they had proclaimed and not lived it. At that point I forgave my church. Jesus laughed and said, "I had a little trouble with the church myself." When I sighed, he added, "Besides, the church is not God."
The church is not God, but when the church has a table to which all are invited and fed at the invitation of grace rather than reward or requirement, there is healing and forgiveness. That is what the church is all about.
There is an old legend that on the last day, everyone in paradise will be singing and dancing with great celebration. All except Jesus. Jesus stands quietly at the gate, waiting ... for Judas.
So we pray, "Forgive us our sins, our complacency, our unconcern, our separation from God." Yet so often we are careless.
An old man living in a temple in the desert was disturbed by the demons who said, "Leave this place which belongs to us." The old man said, "No place belongs to you." So they began to bother his work, but the old man continued with persistence. At last they took his hand and pulled him to the door. When the old man reached the door, he seized the lintel, crying out, "Jesus, save me." Immediately they fled and the old man began to cry. The Lord said to him, "Why are you weeping?" The old man said, "What right do the demons have to seize an old man and treat him like this?" The Lord said to him, "You had been careless. As soon as you turned to me again, I was beside you."1
All of us are in need of confession and forgiveness, of healing, for we bear the wound of being human. When Jesus took the bread and gave it to them, their eyes were opened, and they recognized him.... When we take the bread, bless and break it, our eyes are opened, for the sacrament of communion is the gift of awareness, and a second, third, fourth, fifth chance to begin again.
Struggling with his depression over the loss of his wife who had recently died of cancer, the naturalist, novelist Peter Mattiesen, set out on a 250--mile trek across the Tibetan Plateau in search of the snow leopard. For him it was a pilgrimage of the heart, seeking the monk in exile at the ancient holy place called Crystal Mountain. It was a heart--wrenching trip because he loved his wife and could not let her go. As he faced the dangers of the mountainous trek and the healing of nature, at last "his eyes were opened" and he could write, "In that morning, in the darkness, the silence swelled into a Presence of vast benevolence of which I was a part. I called it the 'Smile' and gave myself up to the peaceful belonging so overwhelming that tears of relief poured from my eyes. There was no separate 'I.' Intuition had become knowing, not through merit, but, it seemed - through grace, I found myself 'forgiven' - the greatest blessing in life."2
When we take the bread, broken for us, our eyes are opened. With brokenness comes a new beginning. The sacrament of holy communion is one of beginning again ... and again.
Someone once said that when God forgives, God takes our sins and dumps them in the deepest lake. Then on the shore God places a sign that reads, "No fishing!"
Christ in his resurrection holds out his hand in forgiveness. The touch of Jesus' hand throughout the stories of his life conveys the power of blessing and healing. "Take," he says to us, "this is my body," speaking of the bread of life, and in the wine, "This is my 'red life' given for you. May your conscience be calmed."
Love can heal. Both Charles Williams and C. S. Lewis wrote about "co--inherence," that through love we can share and literally lighten the sufferings of another. Lewis said that during his wife's intense suffering from cancer he had been able to receive her pains into his own body through his love. Love is more important than healing. A man in a wheelchair in the midst of a prayer group had been told that he would be healed if he had enough faith, and so the group prayed and fasted and some even promised not to break the fast until he was healed. He felt pressure and anxiety and guilt. The tension mounted and his last state of discouragement was worse than the first.
There is a distinction between a cure and a healing. A cure is the removal of physical illness. A healing is repairing and strengthening the mind and spirit to enrich life when no physical cure is possible.
After Peter's eyes were opened, he too healed. Peter and John were on their way to the temple to pray. A man lame from birth was being carried daily and laid at the gate of the temple to ask alms of those who entered the temple. Peter saw him and said, "Look at us." And the lame man fixed his attention upon them, expecting to receive something from them (Acts 3:1--8). Peter said, "I have no silver or gold, but what I have I give you, in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk." And he took him by the right hand and raised him up, and immediately his feet and ankles were made strong. Leaping up, he stood and walked and entered the temple with them, walking and leaping and praising God.
Peter acted before he preached. He began with a concrete event, showing the experience of grace among them. The beggar begged for alms and received healing. It is possible that God has something better in store for us than that for which we ask and pray.
A preacher once said, about this story of Peter and John, "The lame man's feet were made strong. I can't explain it. It's not my business to explain. It's my business to tell." And to forgive. Maybe we are the one to forgive because no one else ever has.
The church is dark. Only the altar area is filled with light from the candles. We watch the priests break the bread, raise the cup, and consume communion. The words are there. The acts of the sacrament are there, but we are seated in the pews. Our action takes place when we leave, paying our alms on the way out. This is no longer true, thanks to a brave German monk named Martin Luther. Today we take the bread and drink the wine, paying our awe and praise to God in place of our alms.
"Hear the good news," the giver of the bread and wine says to those at the altar. "Christ died for us while we were yet sinners. The body of Christ, given for you. The blood of Christ, given for you." We take and eat, assuming we know what it means. But do we?
What do we mean by "Christ"? By "sin"? By the "body" and "blood"? Who or what enfleshes these words for us, puts meat on their bones? Attending church one Sunday Ralph Waldo Emerson, looking out of the window as the preacher preached, watched the snow fall. When he returned home, he wrote, "The snow was real but the preacher spectral." So we pray with the disciples that our eyes will be opened to recognize his presence, the one who creates the frame around the moment and tells us to eat, to stop and look and listen, and be healed. Amen.
Hymn: "Jesu, Jesu"
Sing as a communion invitation before and a community response after participating in the Lord's Supper, as a substitute for the prayer of thanksgiving.
Sacrament Of Holy Communion
Hymn: "There Is A Balm In Gilead"
(words and music: African--American spiritual)
Prayers Of The People
Pastoral Prayer:
Lord God, who has given us life, heal our wounds and make us whole, revive and heal our souls.
Drop Thy still dews of quietness,
Till all our strivings cease;
Take from our souls the strain and stress,
and let our ordered lives confess
The beauty of Thy peace.
(John Greenleaf Whittier,
"Dear Lord and Father of Mankind")
The Lord's Prayer
Offering
Doxology
Hymn Of Commitment: "Become To Us The Living Bread"
(words: Miriam Drury; music: "Schones Geistliches Gesangsbuch")
Benediction:
Go now in the name of God who gives us food and drink, healing and forgiveness through Jesus Christ who changes that food and drink into holy bread and wine, and the Holy Spirit who is with us in that sharing. Amen.
____________
1. Benedicta Ward, The Sayings of the Desert Fathers (London: Mowbrays, 1975), p. 61.
2. Peter Mattiessen, The Snow Leopard (New York: Bantam, 1978), p. 111.
Jesus said, "Your faith has made you whole." Come, let us worship God our Healer.
Hymn: "Here, O My Lord, I See Thee"
(words: Horatius Bonar; music: Edward Dearle)
Children's Time:
"I choose Rebecca," Alice called. Sam shouted, "I take Bill." Alice chose, "Jean ... Tim ... Philip ..." Sam said, "Beth, Alex, Charles." So it continued, choosing sides for the game they would play. Carl was always the last one to be chosen, so today, before he heard his name called last, he left the field and returned home. "What happened?" asked his older brother, Jim, when he saw the sad look on Carl's face. "Last one chosen again," Carl mumbled. "Bummer," said his brother. "Hi, you are home early," Mother said, coming into the kitchen where the boys were drinking milk and eating apples. "What happened?" "Last one chosen again," Carl mumbled. "Bummer," said Mother, sympathetically. "You, too?" Carl asked, looking up in surprise. Mother explained, " 'Bummer' is the name given to the last lamb that is born and is rejected and so 'bums' milk from the other ewes, the mother sheep. Come sit with me and I will tell you a story." Carl finished his milk and sat beside his mother. She put her arm around Carl and said, "When I was your age, we lived on the farm, the same farm where Grandpa and Grandma live today. One day a 'bummer' was born. Of course he was very weak at first and I fed him with an eye dropper every twenty minutes. But at last he grew enough to drink from a bottle like a baby. He lived in the house with us because he needed so much care. Sometimes he thought he was a person. But at last he grew big enough to live outside in the barnyard with the other lambs. Bummer never forgot me. Whenever I was outside, Bummer would race to me. And whenever I felt sad or small or lonely, I remembered Bummer and ..." When the telephone rang, Mother got up to answer it. "Really?" she laughed. When Carl heard his mother laughing, he asked, "Who is it?" Mother held her hand over the mouth piece and replied, "It's Grandpa. A new runt lamb has just been born and he wondered if you would have time to take care of him." Carl grinned and took the telephone. "Hi, Grandpa. Yes! And I'll name him 'Bummer.' "
Talk Together:
Why did Carl name the lamb "Bummer"? Have you ever felt "left out" or less than you want to be, like a "Bummer"? (Dismiss the children with prayer.)
Prayer Of Confession:
We are tempted to pray stones into bread, but Jesus said, "One does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God." Forgive us, Lord, and feed us. Amen.
Words Of Assurance:
Jesus said, "This is my body, given for you. Take, eat. You are forgiven." Amen.
Psalter Reading: Psalm 122
Old Testament: l Kings 19:4--9
Epistle: Acts 27:33--36
New Testament: Luke 24:30--35
Sermon:
Our text for today is a familiar story. The disciples, sad and lonely at the death of Jesus, are met by a stranger whom they invite into their home to eat together. When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him.
"Then their eyes were opened" reminds me of Jesus healing the blind. In the breaking of bread in the sacrament of communion there is healing and forgiveness. It is what the church is all about.
For years I was angry at the church in which I grew up. I was taught its doctrine but not what lay behind the doctrine - God's love, healing, and feeding. What I was taught and what I experienced were not the same, and as soon as I was able, I rejected that particular church but carried its wounds and my anger.
Years later, attending a Wednesday Holy Communion worship service, the preacher preached a sermon on the Reformation. For me it was a trip to the Past, the place where only thorns and weeds grew. As I listened I began to feel more and more agitated, and I did not know why. Returning to my apartment I sat down to reflect, to meditate, to discern my distress. I was, however, too upset to discover the reason and only wept, but tears are healing. They ask, "What is going on here?" They bring awareness. Later that day I invited Jesus into my faith imagination, explaining what had happened, and asking his help. Then I realized that my church had taught me what they believed would "save" me. They had fulfilled their commitment. Yet because they were only human, they had proclaimed and not lived it. At that point I forgave my church. Jesus laughed and said, "I had a little trouble with the church myself." When I sighed, he added, "Besides, the church is not God."
The church is not God, but when the church has a table to which all are invited and fed at the invitation of grace rather than reward or requirement, there is healing and forgiveness. That is what the church is all about.
There is an old legend that on the last day, everyone in paradise will be singing and dancing with great celebration. All except Jesus. Jesus stands quietly at the gate, waiting ... for Judas.
So we pray, "Forgive us our sins, our complacency, our unconcern, our separation from God." Yet so often we are careless.
An old man living in a temple in the desert was disturbed by the demons who said, "Leave this place which belongs to us." The old man said, "No place belongs to you." So they began to bother his work, but the old man continued with persistence. At last they took his hand and pulled him to the door. When the old man reached the door, he seized the lintel, crying out, "Jesus, save me." Immediately they fled and the old man began to cry. The Lord said to him, "Why are you weeping?" The old man said, "What right do the demons have to seize an old man and treat him like this?" The Lord said to him, "You had been careless. As soon as you turned to me again, I was beside you."1
All of us are in need of confession and forgiveness, of healing, for we bear the wound of being human. When Jesus took the bread and gave it to them, their eyes were opened, and they recognized him.... When we take the bread, bless and break it, our eyes are opened, for the sacrament of communion is the gift of awareness, and a second, third, fourth, fifth chance to begin again.
Struggling with his depression over the loss of his wife who had recently died of cancer, the naturalist, novelist Peter Mattiesen, set out on a 250--mile trek across the Tibetan Plateau in search of the snow leopard. For him it was a pilgrimage of the heart, seeking the monk in exile at the ancient holy place called Crystal Mountain. It was a heart--wrenching trip because he loved his wife and could not let her go. As he faced the dangers of the mountainous trek and the healing of nature, at last "his eyes were opened" and he could write, "In that morning, in the darkness, the silence swelled into a Presence of vast benevolence of which I was a part. I called it the 'Smile' and gave myself up to the peaceful belonging so overwhelming that tears of relief poured from my eyes. There was no separate 'I.' Intuition had become knowing, not through merit, but, it seemed - through grace, I found myself 'forgiven' - the greatest blessing in life."2
When we take the bread, broken for us, our eyes are opened. With brokenness comes a new beginning. The sacrament of holy communion is one of beginning again ... and again.
Someone once said that when God forgives, God takes our sins and dumps them in the deepest lake. Then on the shore God places a sign that reads, "No fishing!"
Christ in his resurrection holds out his hand in forgiveness. The touch of Jesus' hand throughout the stories of his life conveys the power of blessing and healing. "Take," he says to us, "this is my body," speaking of the bread of life, and in the wine, "This is my 'red life' given for you. May your conscience be calmed."
Love can heal. Both Charles Williams and C. S. Lewis wrote about "co--inherence," that through love we can share and literally lighten the sufferings of another. Lewis said that during his wife's intense suffering from cancer he had been able to receive her pains into his own body through his love. Love is more important than healing. A man in a wheelchair in the midst of a prayer group had been told that he would be healed if he had enough faith, and so the group prayed and fasted and some even promised not to break the fast until he was healed. He felt pressure and anxiety and guilt. The tension mounted and his last state of discouragement was worse than the first.
There is a distinction between a cure and a healing. A cure is the removal of physical illness. A healing is repairing and strengthening the mind and spirit to enrich life when no physical cure is possible.
After Peter's eyes were opened, he too healed. Peter and John were on their way to the temple to pray. A man lame from birth was being carried daily and laid at the gate of the temple to ask alms of those who entered the temple. Peter saw him and said, "Look at us." And the lame man fixed his attention upon them, expecting to receive something from them (Acts 3:1--8). Peter said, "I have no silver or gold, but what I have I give you, in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk." And he took him by the right hand and raised him up, and immediately his feet and ankles were made strong. Leaping up, he stood and walked and entered the temple with them, walking and leaping and praising God.
Peter acted before he preached. He began with a concrete event, showing the experience of grace among them. The beggar begged for alms and received healing. It is possible that God has something better in store for us than that for which we ask and pray.
A preacher once said, about this story of Peter and John, "The lame man's feet were made strong. I can't explain it. It's not my business to explain. It's my business to tell." And to forgive. Maybe we are the one to forgive because no one else ever has.
The church is dark. Only the altar area is filled with light from the candles. We watch the priests break the bread, raise the cup, and consume communion. The words are there. The acts of the sacrament are there, but we are seated in the pews. Our action takes place when we leave, paying our alms on the way out. This is no longer true, thanks to a brave German monk named Martin Luther. Today we take the bread and drink the wine, paying our awe and praise to God in place of our alms.
"Hear the good news," the giver of the bread and wine says to those at the altar. "Christ died for us while we were yet sinners. The body of Christ, given for you. The blood of Christ, given for you." We take and eat, assuming we know what it means. But do we?
What do we mean by "Christ"? By "sin"? By the "body" and "blood"? Who or what enfleshes these words for us, puts meat on their bones? Attending church one Sunday Ralph Waldo Emerson, looking out of the window as the preacher preached, watched the snow fall. When he returned home, he wrote, "The snow was real but the preacher spectral." So we pray with the disciples that our eyes will be opened to recognize his presence, the one who creates the frame around the moment and tells us to eat, to stop and look and listen, and be healed. Amen.
Hymn: "Jesu, Jesu"
Sing as a communion invitation before and a community response after participating in the Lord's Supper, as a substitute for the prayer of thanksgiving.
Sacrament Of Holy Communion
Hymn: "There Is A Balm In Gilead"
(words and music: African--American spiritual)
Prayers Of The People
Pastoral Prayer:
Lord God, who has given us life, heal our wounds and make us whole, revive and heal our souls.
Drop Thy still dews of quietness,
Till all our strivings cease;
Take from our souls the strain and stress,
and let our ordered lives confess
The beauty of Thy peace.
(John Greenleaf Whittier,
"Dear Lord and Father of Mankind")
The Lord's Prayer
Offering
Doxology
Hymn Of Commitment: "Become To Us The Living Bread"
(words: Miriam Drury; music: "Schones Geistliches Gesangsbuch")
Benediction:
Go now in the name of God who gives us food and drink, healing and forgiveness through Jesus Christ who changes that food and drink into holy bread and wine, and the Holy Spirit who is with us in that sharing. Amen.
____________
1. Benedicta Ward, The Sayings of the Desert Fathers (London: Mowbrays, 1975), p. 61.
2. Peter Mattiessen, The Snow Leopard (New York: Bantam, 1978), p. 111.
