Grace and Peace to you, From the One who is, who was, and who is to come, Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.
The texts this week are rich with sermon material. They are incredible discussions of God and our relationship with God. In one text we hear God’s promise to Abram. In another we have this little conversation between Jesus and a Pharisee, at night. The conversation has sparked a great deal of thought and debate over a small Greek word...anothen...Is Christ calling us to be Born again, or to be Born from above? What does that mean? What difference does it make? Does how we translate anothen make any difference in what God calls us to do and be.
And ends with probably the best-known verse of the New Testament. John 3:16. A verse so ubiquitous that people just write 3:16 on signs to display at sporting events.
Think about that, just 3:16 and we know that they mean "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” and not any of the other 3:16’s in the Bible, which could be interesting, and I think that it is my duty to share some of the other 3:16’s particularly the ones that I think would be hilarious to prooftext and put on signs to display at sporting events...from Genesis To the woman he said, "I will greatly increase your pangs in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children, yet your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you." I am sure that isn’t a message we want to be reminded of when we are watching baseball. Or from Job Or why was I not buried like a stillborn child, like an infant that never sees the light? That got dark...In that vein we have Romans, ruin and misery are in their paths. Or Revelations, So, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I am about to spit you out of my mouth.
While we like to quote John 3:16, in many ways the following verse and the final verse of our Gospel text is just as important, and really even more of a consolation, “Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”
Then, in Romans this week, we hear that God’s promise, God’s blessings, God’s Grace, is not the result of what we might do. We are not made righteous by the works we do, but by our faith and faithfulness to God we are reckoned Righteous.
Any and all of these things could make for great starts and messages in a sermon, But it isn’t the message that I needed this past week or to start this new week with as I transition to being only a student and your pastor. If I need to hear it, I trust that some of you are also needing to hear it.
I want to focus on Genesis 12:2, “I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.” That’s God speaking to Abram. What I want to focus on is “I will bless you...so that you will be a blessing.”
It is that profound reality that we sometimes forget. We are blessed by God, to be a blessing to others and to all of creation. The gifts and talents that we have been given have been provided to us that we can bless others with those gifts.
We see that here in the congregation. Brenda Pedersen is an incredible organizer, she has an eye for the details and can keep the boat afloat, she is efficient and can identify waste. She is an excellent Church secretary. She is very capable in what she does in the day to day to wrangle and keep things running (there are plenty of days that she probably wonders how and why this is the task set before her, keeping everything going here has to feel like herding cats somedays).
Brenda Renkie, bring her skills and talents to manage the congregation’s finances and figure out my insurance. Generally amazing talent with numbers. I am not great at math, or all the things that go into treasurer. But, Brenda, you are doing a great job and give so much of your time to the task.
Our youth bring so many gifts to us, in their singing, their reading, their excitement and joy. They push us older folk in new ways that we might always be comfortable with, but they continue to remind us that there are other ways of doing things. The push to make changes to how we worship is good and healthy, finding new ways to follow the traditions without becoming traditionalists. One of my professors said tradition is the living faith of a healthy people, traditionalism is the dead faith of a dying Church. Traditions grow and adapt as the world changes, but hold on to what is most essential, what is always been done, in new ways, Traditionalism, does the old things despite all the changes that we experience, it is a comfortable refuge, but the flight away from the world is exactly the opposite direction God calls us. God calls us to run into the world, to live and struggle with the world, to be transformed, to be made new, and to make things new.
I could keep going on what gifts we all bring. I think that would be a healthy thing for us to do, but I also doubt that you all want to sit here all day listening to me speak.
This idea that we are blessed to be a blessing is actually an important part of one of our traditions, Worship. It is the reason we gather. We gather to be sent back to the world.
The shape of our service is a tradition. We might change the words and the hymns, we might make changes to the order here and there, but the general shape of worship follows a millennia old structure.
First, we are gathered together and welcomed by God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. We repent of our sins and hear the good news that we have been forgiven, that God will help us to become the people God intends us to be. Or we remember that in baptism God has made us God’s own children, in the waters of baptism we are freed to be the children of God, servants of God’s creation. We sing songs of praise and thanksgiving to Our Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer.
Next, we hear the word of God proclaimed, in readings from scripture, in the preaching of the sermon or the sharing of testimony, the singing of songs, in creeds. Then our service shifts. We hear the word of God; we hear the good news of Christ’s death and resurrection for our sin. We hear the blessing of God. We receive and are recipients, but starting with the prayer of the people, the prayer of intercession, we begin our work as a sent blessing to the world. We pray that God will accomplish healing, support, encouragement to all of God’s creation.
The service continues with the collection of an offering, yes to fund the church, and also to give to those in need, the benevolence. If the church is healthy, if the church is doing what it is called to do, in time that offering becomes focused more on the work in the world, and less on just keeping the lights on.
After the offering we share the meal, communion, where we receive God’s abundant grace through the word and the bread, Christ’s body and blood given for our forgiveness. We remember God’s love displayed through Christ’s willingness to suffer and die as a human for our sake. We eat, we hear, we take into ourselves God’s blessing for us.
With communion completed there is only one part of worship to remain. We are sent. The benediction and blessing are proclaimed again, and we are sent, “Go in Peace, serve the Lord.”
A church, a congregation is a worshiping assembly, gathered by the Holy Spirit, blessed and nourished with the Word of God and the sacraments, in order that we might be sent into creation to be the blessing God intends.
When we leave this building, our worship hasn’t ended. The weekly worship service is just the beginning. How we go about our daily lives, having been sent with a blessing, to be a blessing, is our truest worship. All of us here have been called to a vocation, whether it be a medical lab technician, a farmer, a mother, father, Grandparent, teacher, accountant, city employee, administrator, pilot, driver, janitor/custodian, pastor, student, child, we are all blessed by God in those endeavors to bring the blessing we have received to bless others.
One of my professors this week stated, the church has been struggling since it forgot that being a church isn’t about having this or that program to entertain the members or contribute to their social lives. The Church is ultimately a gathering of people who are equipped and empowered to go out into the world, to be the church, the kingdom of God, and to embody the love of Christ to the world.
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace:
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy.
O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console,
to be understood as to understand,
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
Amen.