NOTICE TO ON-DEMAND WORSHIPPERS
In order to expedite posting the worship services here on our website, we are reducing the transcript to just the scriptures used and the message. Holy Communion is offered every Sunday. If you are worshipping with us online whether during the live-cast or through on-demand viewing, you are encouraged to have bread and juice or wine available as you watch the service and to participate in communion just as if you are present with us.
SCRIPTURE READINGS
God, open us to hear and receive your scriptures today as you would have us hear them, understand them as you would have us understand them, and to act upon them as you would have us act upon them.
In Jesus’ name, Amen.
*Scriptures this morning are from the NRSV.
Acts 1:6-14
So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?”
He replied, “It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
When he had said this, as they were watching, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight.
While he was going and they were gazing up toward heaven, suddenly two men in white robes stood by them. They said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.”
Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a sabbath day’s journey away. When they had entered the city, they went to the room upstairs where they were staying, Peter, and John, and James, and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James son of Alphaeus, and Simon the Zealot, and Judas son of James.
All these were constantly devoting themselves to prayer, together with certain women, including Mary the mother of Jesus, as well as his brothers.
Psalm 68:1-10, 32-35
Let God rise up, let his enemies be scattered; let those who hate him flee before him.
As smoke is driven away, so drive them away; as wax melts before the fire, let the wicked perish before God.
But let the righteous be joyful; let them exult before God; let them be jubilant with joy.
Sing to God, sing praises to his name; lift up a song to him who rides upon the clouds–his name is the LORD– be exultant before him.
Father of orphans and protector of widows is God in his holy habitation.
God gives the desolate a home to live in; he leads out the prisoners to prosperity, but the rebellious live in a parched land.
O God, when you went out before your people, when you marched through the wilderness, Selah the earth quaked, the heavens poured down rain at the presence of God, the God of Sinai, at the presence of God, the God of Israel.
Rain in abundance, O God, you showered abroad; you restored your heritage when it languished; your flock found a dwelling in it; in your goodness, O God, you provided for the needy.
Sing to God, O kingdoms of the earth; sing praises to the Lord, Selah
O rider in the heavens, the ancient heavens; listen, he sends out his voice, his mighty voice.
Ascribe power to God, whose majesty is over Israel; and whose power is in the skies.
Awesome is God in his sanctuary, the God of Israel; he gives power and strength to his people. Blessed be God!
1 Peter 4:12-14; 5:6-11
Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that is taking place among you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you.
But rejoice insofar as you are sharing Christ’s sufferings, so that you may also be glad and shout for joy when his glory is revealed.
If you are reviled for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the spirit of glory, which is the Spirit of God, is resting on you.
Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, so that he may exalt you in due time.
Cast all your anxiety on him, because he cares for you.
Discipline yourselves, keep alert. Like a roaring lion your adversary the devil prowls around, looking for someone to devour.
Resist him, steadfast in your faith, for you know that your brothers and sisters in all the world are undergoing the same kinds of suffering.
And after you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, support, strengthen, and establish you.
To him be the power forever and ever. Amen.
A: Thanks be to God.
Message – Keep the Faith*
Rev. Val
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be pleasing to you, O Lord, my rock, and my redeemer, and may you see fit to use me as a vessel from which you pour out your Divine Word.
In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Our passage from Acts talks about the day – what we now call Ascension Day – that Jesus ascended into heaven. The last day he walked among us as the Living Christ.
It must have been a hard time for the disciples. Their teacher, their friend, the Messiah, is no longer right there among them. The Advocate he promised has not yet come. It says they went back to the Upper Room and “devoted themselves to prayer.” I wonder what they prayed and what they were thinking. I wonder, too, if their faith began to falter.
At least they had one another. But what about all the others who’d begun to follow Jesus. What were those folks thinking? How strong was their faith in what he’d told them? How many began to turn back to the old way of the Temple leaders? How many began to lose hope? How many became bitter because the Messiah hadn’t crushed Rome, rescuing them from oppression and making their lives easier? The crowds weren’t present that day that Christ ascended. The only witnesses were the disciples. The disciples weren’t the Messiah … perhaps what he’d taught them for three years didn’t matter, and they should just turn back to Moses and the prophets … the old covenant instead of the new one.
I wonder … did the world suddenly feel emptier, the sun a little less bright, the wind a little colder, the bird songs a bit less cheery?
This Wednesday, the 24th, is the Day of Ascension. The angels had told them Jesus would come back the same way he left. Some, like Paul, believed that return was imminent.
One thousand nine hundred and ninety years later, and we’re still waiting.
Did the disciples misunderstand what the angels said? Did whoever wrote the book of Acts just make that part up? Did we miss the point? What is it that we’re missing or that we need to do in order to trigger his return? What in both heaven and earth is going on? What’s the hold up, because I don’t know about you, but I seriously need Jesus in the flesh right now, and I think the world does as well … at least that part of the world that calls itself Christian! I need Christ to return and rescue us from the so-called “Christians.” Don’t you?
I mean, really. Look what they’re doing to God! They’ve got God stuffed in this tiny little box with signs all around declaring who their God-in-the-Box rejects, and they’re running out of room for the signs they keep adding. They’ve even joined forces with the Empire to pass laws about who their God-in-the-Box rejects based on the morals they’ve assigned to God-in-the-Box. Morals that declare who is worthy in God-in-the-Boxes sight … odd how the worthy always seem to look and think and believe just like the keepers of God-in-the Box.
Instead of loving one another, loving one’s enemies, caring for the least among us as Christ taught us, the God-in-the-Box keepers deliver a message of hating, fear, and shaming one another, eradicating anyone perceived as an enemy, and blaming the least among us for the conditions the least find themselves in. And the Empire is lovin’ every minute of it.
Jesus, when you come back, please bring a light saber, Yoda, and what’s left of the Rebel fleet! The Sith seem to be in control, and they’re holding everyone hostage to the dark side!
Seriously, though, how do we cope in the world we now face? How do we free God from the God-in-the-Box image? How do we re-introduce Jesus to a world that seems to have forgotten everything about him except his sacrifice for their eternal golden ticket? Are we the ones that are demon possessed like the God-in-the-Box keepers imply, or is it the God-in-the-Box keepers that have fallen victim to some dark force?
Mark 9 beginning in verse 14 tells about the day that Jesus and the three disciples were coming back from the mountain where the Transfiguration occurred when they encounter a crowd of people arguing with some scribes. He asks what they’re arguing about and learns that a man had brought his demon-possessed son to the disciples for healing, but the disciples were unable to cast out the demon. Jesus gets a little testy in this passage about the peoples’ lack of faith, calls for the boy to be brought to him, and then questions the father about the boy’s condition. The father tells Jesus about it and then says, “if you are able to do anything, help us!” and Jesus says, I imagine with a bit of an exasperated sigh “If you are able! All things can be done for the one who believes.” Immediately the father of the child cried out, “I believe; help my unbelief!” When Jesus saw that a crowd came running together, he rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, “You spirit that keeps this boy from speaking and hearing, I command you, come out of him, and never enter him again,” and the demon was, of course, cast out. Later in private, the disciples asked why they had been unable to cast the demon from the boy and Jesus told them that kind of demon could only be cast out by prayer.
Mark doesn’t report what Jesus prayed that day he cast out the boy’s demon, leading one to believe Jesus didn’t pray it out loud. I wonder what he prayed. I wonder if my prayers are good enough to reach God and be answered. I wonder if I’ll recognize the answer when it comes.
“I believe; help my unbelief!”
Have you noticed a theme, a pattern in today’s scriptures yet?
In the passage from Acts, they went back to the Upper Room and devoted themselves to prayer. Psalm 68 … as are all Psalms … is a prayer. The passage from 1 Peter is an admonition closed with a prayer.
We hear so often these days, especially from the Empirical leaders, the phrase “thoughts and prayers.” Something tragic happens, “thoughts and prayers.” We hear it so often, we now ignore it, scoff at it, or condemn those that say it because “thoughts and prayers” never seem to lead to any action that would prevent another tragedy of the same kind. The Empire and God-in-the-Box keepers are not able to cast out the demons, and rather than figure out what is wrong, they seem to be praying the wrong prayer and … well … their “thoughts” are only creating demons where there are none. I guess if you’re the Empire or a God-in-the-Box keeper, it would be in your advantage to produce more demons, making any “action” you might take … like laws that eradicate your home-made demons … seem necessary and ensure your ability to retain your positions of power and control.
But … there’s one more prayer this morning … one that Jesus prayed in Let us repeat the prayer of Jesus in John 17, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all people, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him.
And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.
I glorified you on earth by finishing the work that you gave me to do.
So now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had in your presence before the world existed.”
Jesus revealed the true nature of God … “I have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world. They were yours, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word.
Now they know that everything you have given me is from you; for the words that you gave to me I have given to them, and they have received them and know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me.”
I am asking on their behalf; I am not asking on behalf of the world, but on behalf of those whom you gave me, because they are yours.
All mine are yours, and yours are mine; and I have been glorified in them.
And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one.”
Jesus revealed the true nature of God … “I have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world. They were yours, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word.
Now they know that everything you have given me is from you; for the words that you gave to me I have given to them, and they have received them and know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me.”
Jesus told us God’s will … what was expected of us … “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”
Jesus asked something specific of God on our behalf … “And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one.”
They … meaning those of us who follow Christ and the Way that he taught us … may be one as Christ and God are one. One with each other. One with God and Christ.
I believe the faith of the keepers of God-in-the-Box is incredibly weak … so weak, they’ve decided to create a god they can manage and control so that they can feel strong in their very weak faith. Do it in God-in-the-Box’s name has become their one and only flex, their self-reminder of their self-righteousness.
Remember in the Mark passage that Jesus said there is a demon who can only be cast out through prayer … a prayer he didn’t teach us, but since he is the one who prayed it, it would have been a righteous and holy prayer.
First you pray … then you do. I believe it’s past time to reveal the true nature of God as Christ revealed it to us … God of Love, Compassion, Forgiveness, Mercy, Inclusion. God in whose authority the demon of a god-in-the-box can be cast out. I believe it’s time to restore the power of thoughts and prayers by making ourselves once again one with Christ, one with God. To take what Christ revealed to us about God’s true nature and do God’s will on earth as it is in heaven. To stand with the oppressed, the outcast, the least among us … to not just stand with them, but to stand between them and the demon god-in-the-box.
I believe; help my unbelief.
And all God’s children said, amen.
Beloved, when we pray together, we open ourselves to God, acknowledging our joys, thanksgivings, challenges, and anxieties. In return, God opens to us the pathways of divine love, inviting us to practice and grow in our resurrection life through communion with the Triune God and one another. Today, you are invited to embody the practice of casting our cares on God, for as 1 Peter says, “Cast all your anxiety on him, because he cares for you.”
Let’s pray:
Merciful God,
We come to this space today weighed down, weary, and in need of your tending. As we search our hearts, we lift up these petitions to you.
We lift up the spaces in our lives where we feel like we are walking through fire, beset on each side with seemingly nowhere to turn for relief.
We lift up the relationships in our lives marked by strife and unkindness with seemingly no possibility of peace.
We lift up the worries that haunt us and keep us up at night with seemingly no solution or resolution.
We lift up the burdens we bear and the struggle of carrying heavy responsibilities with seemingly no opportunity for rest.
In the silence, we lift up all these troubles and more that loom large before us.
As we lift up these struggles to God, we also cast them down before God’s feet, trusting in God’s care for us.
God who loves us and cares for us, grant us the peace of knowing that in all our stresses, hardships, and responsibilities, we are not alone. You are with us. Grow our trust in your care, that we might first turn not to ourselves but to you. Reorient our lives so that in difficult times we would move toward joy in the deep remembering of all you have done, are doing, and will do for us, your Easter people.
Credits:
- Unless listed below, all works cited within the text above.
- *Adapted in full from Preaching Notes, Discipleship Ministries Worship Planning Series, May 21, 2023.
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