June 21, 2020 Service – Morris United Church

ORDER OF SERVICE FOR SUNDAY, JUNE 21, 2020

THIRD SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST / NATIONAL INDIGINOUS PEOPLES DAY

Due to copywrite limitations, we are unable to print the words to the songs. However, our musicians have chosen music to fit the scriptures. We invite you to look up the words in your worship book and ponder them. If you do not have a worship book, ponder the words to one of your favourite hymns and listen for God’s voice. Those who have internet may find the songs on YouTube.

BEFORE WE WORSHIP, WE REFLECT…

God does not promise that the path of the disciple will be easy. Jeremiah feels the pain of rejection from those who do not want to hear what he has to say. Jesus declares that his words may bring stark division. Even so, we need not be afraid for God accounts for each hair on our heads. Though we may experience rejection, frustration, division, and death, God’s grace and love make us a new creation each day. Receiving the benediction, we are sent from worship to witness to Christ in the world.

Call to Worship

Great Creator, from the east comes the dawn, the new beginnings of the rising sun. Open our hearts to newness this day.

Come, holy Spirit.

From the north come cold winds that refresh us and challenge us.

Come, holy Spirit.

From the west comes the setting sun, the reminder that all things end, only to begin again.

Come, holy Spirit.

From the south comes warmth and renewal, growth and new life.

Come, holy Spirit.

Come indeed, holy Spirit, all around us, always behind us, ever before us.

Let us worship God.

CHILDREN’S SONG: VU #357 Tell Me The Stories Of Jesus

CENTERING PRAYER

Creator, you have made the world a beautiful home for us and for all the creatures that fly through the air, move across the ground, or swim in the water. Let our worship be a time when we remember how we are connected to this earth, to all creatures, to all people, and to each other. Amen.

CHILDREN’S TIME

This week begins the summer solstice. That is when the sunlight begins to get a little shorter each day until we seem to be living in darkness as Christmas gets closer. Sad, I know. Rather than being sad, I have an idea that will hopefully make you think and have fun at the same time!!

Every week I want you to take a thin piece of paper – you are going to make a paper chain – and write on it one thing you are thankful for from God. This is the challenge…you are to do this until Christmas! Once a week I want you to seriously think about all you have, all that God provides in your life, and write it on a piece of paper. Then connect that paper to the other pieces of paper. At Christmas time, it would be nice to connect all the paper chains of thanks and use them to decorate the sanctuary!!

I find that as the days get shorter, I burn more candles so that I am reminded that Jesus is the light of the world and darkness cannot overcome his light! If you choose colourful paper, you will have that colour surrounding you even as the sun shines less and less each day.

God, you give us so much! Help us to look after all that you have created, and help us to live with an attitude of gratitude. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.

PRAYER FOR ILLUMINATION

Living God, help us so to hear your holy Word that we may truly understand; that, understanding, we may believe and believing, we may follow in all faithfulness and obedience, seeking your honor and glory in all that we do;
through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Readings and Psalm

First Reading: Jeremiah 20:7-13

Jeremiah accuses God of forcing him into a ministry that brings him only contempt and persecution. Yet Jeremiah is confident that God will be a strong protector against his enemies and commits his life into God’s hands.

Psalm 69:7-18

Answer me, O Lord, for your love is kind. (Ps. 69:16)

Second Reading: Romans 6:1b-11

In baptism we were incorporated into the reality of Christ’s death and resurrection. We have been made new in Christ through his death and resurrection to live freed from sin.

Gospel: Matthew 10:24-39

Jesus warns his disciples that their ministry in his name will meet with opposition. However, he assures them that they need not fear for the truth will come to light. Life is found in Christ.

SERMON:

It was annual meeting time in my first parish. I had been serving as pastor for 5 years. We had gone through most of the agenda and were at “new business”. One of the senior members, a matriarch of the congregation, proceeded to stand up and start listing off her disgruntlements against me and my ministry. Since she had never expressed these opinions to me, or any council members, before this, mine was not the only jaw hitting the floor.

In actual fact, ministry was going very well. Attendance was up, we had an active youth group and church choir, a community choir, a community youth choir; Confirmation classes were going well and we were financially secure. As she carried on with her list part of my brain was thinking, “ I am 33. Jesus was 33 when he was crucified. I am in good company!”

Thankfully, I was astute enough to realize, as was the Council and other members, that her complaints were not founded on reason, but on frustration. She had been active in the local, synodical and national Church all her life. She was trained as a professional lay leader; she had taught the confirmation program at a different congregation when she lived in another city. She had been a youth leader and many a pastor’s right-hand woman. Now, her health was failing, her bones deteriorating, she was in constant pain and she had to watch me, young, fit and competent, doing the ministry that she had done for most of her life. She wasn’t angry at me. She was angry at her body for betraying her and forcing her to give up her ministry as a lay professional. While I understood the situation under the words, being verbally crucified, as it were, was still difficult to take.

So, I understand Jeremiah and his rant to God. There were several times in my first parish where I stomped up and down the aisle of a locked church, yelling my frustration to God! Once, I ended my rant with the words, “Send me to Calcutta!” After a moment’s pause, the word of God came to me – “You’re already there!”

I knew that. I knew the broken lives of the people I served. I knew the reasons behind the behaviour. I knew that I was the scapegoat for their not wanting to confront themselves. I knew it, I got it – but so help me God there were days when I, like Jeremiah, wanted retribution!!

Thankfully, like Jeremiah, once I had my rant, I was able to sit down, breathe, and say, “Ok, God, what is it you would like me to do for these, our people?”

It’s true, you know, what Jeremiah says, “…within me there is something like a burning fire shut up in my bones; I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot.”

You see, no matter what happens in my life, no matter the waves or troughs, the knowledge of my call to serve Christ’s flock never leaves. I have known my call to ministry since the age of 4. There is no running from that. One can only run TO God’s embrace for the courage and strength to do what God desires one to do.

Notice that after calling upon God for vengeance against his enemies, Jeremiah has a change in attitude. It would seem that he, too, needed to have a rant and get his frustration out of his soul, only to pause, take a deep breath, and say thank you to God for continuing to be a support as Jeremiah tries to proclaim God’s word to a stubborn people.

As the confirmation students have recently learned, even God had rants! God wanted to wipe out those stubborn Israelites at Mount Sinai!! Moses’ cooler head prevailed. The Israelites lived.

I have developed a much thicker skin since my first years in ministry. I have learned to pay attention to people’s life stories, especially the stories of loss and regret. I have learned patience. I have also learned to be aware of my relationship with God at all times.

The take away from this text from Jeremiah is the knowledge that Jeremiah suffered because he remained true to proclaiming the word of God a word that no one wanted to hear. AND, Jeremiah remained strong and endured, continuing to proclaim the word of God for the sole purpose of trying to get a stubborn people to acknowledge that they had turned away from God, and that God desired them to turn back into the loving relationship that had existed from the beginning. Try as he might, Jeremiah was not successful in turning the hearts of God’s people. He was, however, faithful in his proclamation.

As I check the headlines on CBC.ca, the majority are about Covid-19. No doubt, there are many who are ranting about their struggles with isolation, wearing masks, restricted travel, constantly sanitizing and the seemingly endless questions one has to answer before being allowed to enter a building or a store. I get it. Truly, I do. Now, having ranted, let us all take a deep breath, say a prayer of thanks to God for all we have, for always being with us, and then ask of the Lord, “What would you have me do to help keep these people whom you love, for whom you have died, safe?” Amen.

HYMN OF THE MONTH: More Voices #176 Three Things I Promise

PRAYERS OF INTERCESSION:

Called into unity with one another and the whole creation, let us pray for our shared world.

Expansive God, you bring diverse voices together to form your church. Open our hearts and unstop our ears to learn from one another, that differences might not overshadow our baptismal unity.