ORDER OF WORSHIP
- Call to Worship, and Opening Prayer – Rev. Val & Congregation
- Gloria Patri (UMH 70)
- Hymn: I Am Thine, O Lord (UMH 419)
- Pastoral Prayer – Rev. Val
- Peace Hymn: This Is My Song (UMH 437)
- Scripture Readings – Rev. Val
- Message: My God, My God – Rev. Val
- Hymn: When Our Confidence Is Shaken (Song Sheet)
- Service of Holy Communion
- Offertory Prayer – Rev. Val
- Doxology (UMH 95)
- Benediction – Rev. Val
WELCOME, CALL TO WORSHIP, & OPENING PRAYER
Good morning! It’s good to be back here in the church this morning! To all of you worshipping with us online, I’m glad you’re here, too! One quick announcement – I would like to meet with all of you after service next Sunday to talk about our mission projects, so please plan on staying after next week if you can. Also, welcome to our guest(s) this morning! We’re glad you’re here with us.
Let’s worship!
Call to Worship
World Council of Churches, https://www.oikoumene.org/resources/documents/prayer-litany-of-unity
L: God of grace, send upon us today your Holy Spirit as you poured out the Spirit upon the Apostles on the day of Pentecost. May your Holy Spirit ignite in us a passionate desire for unity.
P: We wish to be one, so that the world may believe.
L: When your church unites people with Christ, in the power of the Spirit and manifests communion in prayer and action; when your church affirms the sanctity of life and proclaims unity, just peace and reconciliation, when your church provides healing and overcomes divisions of race, gender, age and culture, We give thanks and praise, O God.
P: As we draw closer to Christ, we draw closer to each other.
L: There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female, for all are one in Christ Jesus.
P: In Him all nations shall be blessed.
L: Many people will come from East and West, from North and South, and will eat with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the Kingdom of heaven
P: The nations will walk by in the light of the Lamb.
L: Because God’s purpose is to gather the whole creation under the Lordship of Jesus Christ; because the church is to unite people with Christ in the power of the Spirit, to promote life, justice and peace; because the church is a foretaste of the koinonia (community), which God wills.
P: We give thanks and praise, O God.
L: Let us worship the God who gathers us! Let us pray in his name together:
Opening Prayer
https://www.ministrymatters.com/all/entry/9488/worship-elements-february-24-2019
Thou who art over us,
Thou who are one of us,
Thou who art:
Give us a pure heart, that we may see thee;
A humble heart, that we may hear thee;
A heart of love, that we may serve thee;
A heart of faith, that we may abide in thee.
PASTORAL PRAYER
Rev. Val
Precious loving Creator of all that was and is and will be, we come to you today with thanks in our hearts for the blessings you shower upon us … for gifts of the Spirit … for the times you gently force us to pause and be still … for the food on our tables, the rooves over our heads, family, friends … and for all the blessings we fail to notice.
We give thanks for life in a nation where no other nations wage war within our borders, where speaking truth to power is still legal, and where we are each allowed to worship in our own ways.
We lift up to you those names called out to us, each with their own burdens, afflictions, or troubles, and ask that you be with them and, if it is your will, strengthen, heal, comfort, and give them peace. Where it is in our power to carry out your will for them, guide us in and provide the resources for what you would have us do.
God, there is so much division in this world, even within your church. Jesus told us that this would happen, that friend would turn against friend, neighbor against neighbor, that even within our own families, we would divide. He told us there would be wars and rumors of war, that nations would rise up against nations. But he it would not be the end. Yet still we yearn, we cry out for peace. We cry out for justice for all your children. We cry out for your guidance in how to stop those who intentionally or knowingly do harm to others – those who make wars of choice, those who abuse and use violence against others, and especially those who make laws that diminish, encourage abuse of, condone harm to, and foster violence against any of your children.
There are so many in danger now, Lord, all over the world. Refugees from extremism and violence in too many countries that find no or limited welcome. Women and children and even young boys and men that become vulnerable to human traffickers. People living in the streets, in their cars, people facing famines and floods, people without proper medical care. Children, Lord, hungry and homeless and lost through no fault of their own. Too many of your children rejected by their families, cast out of their homes because they don’t conform to the narrow patriarchal definition of gender or of lifestyle. Victims of misogyny, racism, xenophobia, homophobia.
And yet the propagandists and extremists and the money and power greedy flourish while your children suffer and it’s all too much, Lord! We don’t know where to even begin to make a difference when, even within this very conference there are those who sow seeds of division.
You said that if your people who are called by your name humble themselves, and pray and seek your face and turn from their wrongful ways, then you will hear from heaven and will forgive them and heal their land. You charged us with being caretakers of your world, Lord. Then we cry out to you now in humility that this world is our land and we beg your forgiveness and ask that you heal it and us.
Strengthen us to continue to stand up for those who the earthly powers and principalities continuously knock down. Provide the resources we will need to welcome and care for the stranger, the widow, the orphans. Guide us to those imprisoned by their circumstances. Spirit fill us with the words and lead is in the actions to set the prisoners free. Make us, mold us into instruments of your peace.
And God, maybe this is wrong, but we beseech you. Bring a just and fair peace to Ukraine and bring a permanent end to the rule of Putin and anyone like him or who would aspire to be like him. Silence the tongues of those who aid and abet him, and all other evil doers like him. Liberate the people ruled by him and anyone like him. Throughout all time you have continually rescued your people from the Pharoahs and Caesars and Herods and others. Rescue your people now, Lord, and give us peace.
Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer……
Dearest Lord, whatever else You see that we need—whatever is for the good of our neighbor and redounds to Your glory—we pray that You would grant to us, Your children. We ask it Jesus’ name who taught us to pray:
Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, for Thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory forever.
Amen.
SCRIPTURE READINGS
Open the eyes of our understanding and prepare our hearts by the power of Your Spirit, that we may receive Your scriptures with much joy and rejoicing and may leave today having a deeper understanding of who You are and who You would have us to be.
In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Isaiah 49:13-16a (NRSV) – Sing for joy, O heavens, and exult, O earth; break forth, O mountains, into singing! For the Lord has comforted his people and will have compassion on his suffering ones.
But Zion said, “The Lord has forsaken me, my Lord has forgotten me.”
Can a woman forget her nursing child, or show no compassion for the child of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you. See, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands.
Psalm 22 (NRSV) – My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning? O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer; and by night, but find no rest.
Yet you are holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel. In you our ancestors trusted; they trusted, and you delivered them. To you they cried, and were saved; in you they trusted, and were not put to shame.
But I am a worm, and not human; scorned by others, and despised by the people. All who see me mock at me; they make mouths at me, they shake their heads; “Commit your cause to the Lord; let him deliver— let him rescue the one in whom he delights!”
Yet it was you who took me from the womb; you kept me safe on my mother’s breast. On you I was cast from my birth, and since my mother bore me, you have been my God.
Do not be far from me, for trouble is near and there is no one to help. Many bulls encircle me, strong bulls of Bashan surround me; they open wide their mouths at me, like a ravening and roaring lion.
I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint; my heart is like wax; it is melted within my breast; my mouth is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to my jaws; you lay me in the dust of death.
For dogs are all around me; a company of evildoers encircles me. My hands and feet have shriveled; I can count all my bones. They stare and gloat over me; they divide my clothes among themselves, and for my clothing they cast lots.
But you, O Lord, do not be far away! O my help, come quickly to my aid! Deliver my soul from the sword, my life from the power of the dog! Save me from the mouth of the lion!
From the horns of the wild oxen, you have rescued me. I will tell of your name to my brothers and sisters; in the midst of the congregation, I will praise you:
You who fear the Lord, praise him! All you offspring of Jacob, glorify him; stand in awe of him, all you offspring of Israel! For he did not despise or abhor the affliction of the afflicted; he did not hide his face from me but heard when I cried to him. From you comes my praise in the great congregation; my vows I will pay before those who fear him.
The poor shall eat and be satisfied; those who seek him shall praise the Lord. May your hearts live forever!
All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord; and all the families of the nations shall worship before him. For dominion belongs to the Lord, and he rules over the nations.
To him, indeed, shall all who sleep in the earth bow down; before him shall bow all who go down to the dust, and I shall live for him. Posterity will serve him; future generations will be told about the Lord, and proclaim his deliverance to a people yet unborn, saying that he has done it.
Mark 15:33-39 (NRSV) – When it was noon, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon. At three o’clock Jesus cried out with a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” When some of the bystanders heard it, they said, “Listen, he is calling for Elijah.” And someone ran, filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on a stick, and gave it to him to drink, saying, “Wait, let us see whether Elijah will come to take him down.” Then Jesus gave a loud cry and breathed his last. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. Now when the centurion, who stood facing him, saw that in this way he breathed his last, he said, “Truly this man was God’s Son!”
The scriptures of God for the People of God.
Thanks be to God.
MESSAGE – Father, Forgive Them
Parts of this message are adapted or cited directly from “Seven Words: Listening to Chirst from the Cross,” by Susan Robb (Abingdon Press, ISBN: 978-1 7910-0781-2). All other citations are included in the transcript.
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be pleasing to you, O Lord, my rock, and my redeemer. Amen.
Godforsaken … there’s a word. We most commonly declare places godforsaken … barren tracts like the Mojave or Salt Flats … ruins of once thriving towns, villages, and cities ravaged by bombs and artillery fire. Quests, missions, ideas are sometimes called godforsaken if they’re fruitless. Even people can feel godforsaken, especially when they find themselves in the midst of a terrible situation wondering just where God is and why He isn’t showing up and answering desperate prayers.
Susan Robb writes of her own experience of feeling godforsaken: “I grew up a ‘daddy’s girl.’ Although I know this isn’t everyone’s experience, I enjoyed the distinct good fortune of having a tender, loving, doting father. He was always ready to listen, always forgiving, always there to wipe away a tear, offer a hug, and given advice, solicited or otherwise. His was a true expression of unconditional love. It was his love that made it easy for me to believe in a heavenly Father who was full of mercy and unconditional love. Needless to say, I adored my father.
For more than two years, my dad suffered from a protracted illness, one that we knew would eventually take his life. It was a physical and emotional roller coaster. There were times when he would feel well, experiencing only diminished energy, and it would seem perhaps the doctors’ terminal diagnosis might have been wrong. Then, without warning, there would be an emergency trip to the hospital, the family would be summoned, death appeared imminent, suffering abounded – and then, miraculously, a modest recovery would follow. With each successive cycle of decline and recovery, the physical suffering became worse – often unbearable. Gradually, our prayers shifted from asking for healing for my dad to begging God to mercifully end his suffering.
It was in this season nearest the end of his life when Dad’s suffering was so acute that it became all of our suffering as a family. On one particularly despondent morning, I had a crying, ranting, fist-shaking conversation with God. I’ve read some of those conversations, which appear occasionally in the psalms, but never imagined myself in such a situation. I never thought I would allow those expressions to escape my lips for fear of being struck by lightning. But on this awful morning, it happened. I said: ‘God, we prayed that Daddy would be healed, and he wasn’t. Then we prayed he wouldn’t suffer, but he has – terribly. Lord, I’ve prayed that you would take him, because it would be a blessing to him and to us, and yet he lingers in pain. Are you listening? Do you hear our prayers? Do you even care? I would love an answer, but I really don’t expect one anymore!’ Why had it seemed that God was falling down on the job of heavenly parenthood just when we needed help the most? Why had it seemed like the assurances of God’s love and presence with us were just empty promises?”
I would imagine we’ve all had moments when we felt godforsaken … times when things were headed South at a rate somewhere near lightspeed and we were overwhelmed and desperate beyond measure and no matter how hard or long or fervently we prayed, we felt like our prayers bounced back at us from the ceiling or roof of our car or wherever we were at the time. I’d also hazard a guess that at least a few of us have prayed an angry prayer or two … or more. And then felt guilty about it after.
According to the passage from Mark, even Jesus had at least a moment of feeling abandoned by God. Exhausted, his energy almost gone, in excruciating pain, and on the very edge of death, he cries out, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani!” My God, my God, why have you forsaken me!
We should take comfort in knowing that Jesus, the Word Made Flesh, both fully human and fully divine, felt abandoned by God in the darkest moment of his earthly life … not only felt it, but spoke it out for all those listening including us to hear.
How does one take comfort, though, in knowing that Jesus felt abandoned by God? Isn’t God supposed to be ever faithful, ever present, ever with us? Isn’t that the promise? Better questions might be, “Did God abandon Jesus … leave Jesus alone in his suffering? Even if Jesus felt godforsaken, did he truly believe God had abandoned him? Are these words, the last words Jesus spoke from the cross, as dark and hope crushing as they sound?
With all going on in the world, in our own country, and even within our denomination, it’s pretty easy to hear those last few questions and agree that yes, indeed, those darkest of Christ’s words crush what little hope we might have because if God abandoned Christ, he would most definitely abandon us.
But …
Throughout the scriptures including the scripture Jesus quoted from the cross, the people of Israel, the people whose very name means “struggles with God,” felt at times that God had forsaken them. And they didn’t hold back about those feelings, either. In fact, they sang about it. Psalm 142, Psalm 137, Psalm 42, and Psalm 22 – the psalm Jesus quoted with his last breath – are just a few examples of their feelings of abandonment and unanswered prayers. None of those same psalms end with feelings of hopelessness, though. Not one.
Just as there was more to Jesus’s story than the psalmist’s words of despair, and there’s more to our stories, too. When we follow the story of Jesus’ words to its conclusion, we may just find out that our own worst trials, our moments of deepest despair and isolation, take us back to God.
Golgotha – The Skull – already felt like a godforsaken place to people in Jerusalem. It was a place associated with torture, suffering, and death. Every crucifixion on Golgotha was a reminder of the power and cruelty of their enemies.
Before he was ever nailed to that cross, Jesus had suffered emotional and physical pain. He had been betrayed by Judas, one of his own chosen disciples. All his other disciples except Peter had run away as soon as he was arrested, and Peter denied him three times before the rooster crowed that morning. He was condemned as a blasphemer by the religious leaders of his own people, mocked by the soldiers, stripped of his clothes, severely beaten, and then made to carry the cross he would die on to the place of his execution. He was so weakened by all he’d gone through that at one point the soldiers forced Simon of Cyrene – a Jewish pilgrim from what we know today as Libya, to help Jesus carry the cross.
By the time he reached Golgotha and in addition to the pain he was already suffering, he most likely would have been suffering from shock, dehydration, and loss of blood from the flogging he’d received. Before the first nail was ever driven into his hands or feet.
Crucifixion was a slow and painful death. Hanging there on the cross, one had to hold themselves up with their legs to keep from suffocating. As their strength waned and their legs weakened, they began to struggle to breathe, and speaking would have been difficult. That was the purposeful design of crucifixion – to create the greatest amount of humiliation and physical suffering for the condemned in order to send an example for those watching – keep the Pax Romana, the peace of Rome – or else. Just as the brutal lynching of Black men and women in the US were perpetrated to terrorize communities of color into silence and submission, Roman crucifixions are accurately seen as acts of state-sponsored terror … to leave the onlookers feeling helpless and hopes against the power of the empire … so helpless and hopeless that not even God could deliver them.
The scriptures tell us that for three hours – from noon until 3 pm, darkness covered the entire land. This was certainly the darkest hours in Jesus’s life and it was also the darkest hour in human history. It was as deep as the darkness of the formless void in creation before God spoke light into existence. It was as dense as the plague of fog and darkness that covered Egypt for three days as God attempted to convince Pharaoh to release God’s people from slavery. It was as dark as the belly of the great fish in which the prophet Jonah is entombed for three days.
And yet Jesus … in pain, humiliation, and suffering, in the agony of this total darkness … Jesus turns to prayer … just like he always had done in the past. With what little breath he has left, he pours out the opening words of Psalm 22, addressed to God in his native Aramaic tongue, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and yet here was the Word Made Flesh struggling with God just like all of us struggle with God! And yet, rather than turn away from God, Jesus turned toward him … even feeling like he’s been forsaken, he calls out to the One he feels has abandoned him, and asks, “If you’re there God, why haven’t you come to help me?”
Jesus was fully divine, but he was fully human, too. I don’t doubt that he was struggling with God that day. I’m not sure even Jesus could have imagined and therefore anticipated the level of pain and suffering he would have felt. I know I can’t. Even childbirth doesn’t reach that level of pain, and I’ve gone through that twice.
I think, though, that there was more intention behind those last words. I think Jesus used his last breath to remind all those who have ears to hear of what Psalm 22 says. Yes, it starts with that lament, it describes what he’s gone through that day almost to a tee, but then – as all psalms do – it ends with hope – great hope.
“From the horns of the wild oxen, you have rescued me. I will tell of your name to my brothers and sisters; in the midst of the congregation, I will praise you:
You who fear the Lord, praise him! All you offspring of Jacob, glorify him; stand in awe of him, all you offspring of Israel! For he did not despise or abhor the affliction of the afflicted; he did not hide his face from me but heard when I cried to him. From you comes my praise in the great congregation; my vows I will pay before those who fear him.
The poor shall eat and be satisfied; those who seek him shall praise the Lord. May your hearts live forever!
All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord; and all the families of the nations shall worship before him. For dominion belongs to the Lord, and he rules over the nations.
To him, indeed, shall all who sleep in the earth bow down; before him shall bow all who go down to the dust, and I shall live for him. Posterity will serve him; future generations will be told about the Lord, and proclaim his deliverance to a people yet unborn, saying that he has done it.”
A psalm, a prayer, which describes the pain and suffering but ends with a reminder that God has not abandoned anyone. And does not abandon anyone.
Even though Jesus feels abandoned in his suffering, humiliation and humanity, he knows he is truly not alone. The passage from Isaiah reminds us of God’s compassion and care for God’s suffering ones. Jesus remembers all of the words of the psalm that he began to pray from the cross, the song that he needed to carry him through in hope in his final moments of life. And even if he didn’t recite them all, hanging there on that cross, he wants us to hear and remember them, too: “On you I was cast from my birth, and since my mother ore me you have been my God”, “For he did not despise or abhor the affliction of the afflicted; he did not hide his face from me, but heard when I cried to him.” “To him, indeed, shall all who sleep in the earth bow down; before him shall bow all who go down to the dust, and I shall live for him … Future generations will be told about the Lord, and proclaim his deliverance to a people yet unborn, saying that he has one it.”
Rather than a prayer of being forsaken, Jesus very last words invoked a prayer of triumph. In the midst of our suffering and trials, God in Jesus Christ is with us, hearing our cries, walking through the darkness, and leading us into the light and victory. On the other side of our Good Fridays, Easter is always waiting.
SERVICE OF HOLY COMMUNION
We do not publish the transcript of the Communion Service.
OFFERTORY PRAYER
Please join me in a prayer for our gifts this morning:
Patient and merciful God, we bring our offerings humbly on this day, hoping they will bring fruit to the ministry of your church on earth. We ourselves have not always set our priorities on bearing good fruit, and yet you are a patient gardener. You have sent saints into our midst to make the soil richer, yet like the stubborn fig tree, good fruit has been scarce. May our journey this Lenten season feed our spirits to bring forth the fruit you desire. We pray in the name of our savior and redeemer, Jesus the Christ.
Amen.
BENEDICTION
Jon the Methodist as posted on Facebook
Now hear this benediction:
May you go into this day with full knowledge that God is fully aware of every challenge you’re facing, every opportunity that’s laid before you. God goes before us. God makes a way. In this day, may you know the power of God’s unseen presence in your life. May you become a vessel of grace to those around you. In the name of Christ. Go in his peace. Amen.
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