PIONEER
PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
Worship
via Blog 17th Sunday after
Pentecost September 27, 2020
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WELCOME AND
ANNOUNCEMENTS
Welcome to Pioneer’s blog worship
service. Though we are accessing this remotely and unable to look each other in
the eye, we are still the Pioneer faith community, gathered as children of God
to worship, to be spiritually fed, and to be equipped to go out to serve in
Christ’s name—though we do it differently during this pandemic.
Pioneer offers worship in several modes:
a)
The
blog.
b)
The
blog service mailed through US Postal service.
c)
Sermons
only, mailed to those who so request.
d)
Zoom
services at 10:00 Sunday mornings.
e)
Live
worship. We can now allow up to 40 people in worship. A six-foot distancing
will be maintained. Masks are mandated. There can be congregational singing
with masks, but no passing the peace, hugs, handshakes, or coffee hour.
-
Deacons will meet at the church following
worship.
-
If
you wish to contribute toward the relief effort for the Oregon wildfires, you can
do that through the Presbyterian Disaster Assistance Fund. You can write a
check to the church, earmarked Oregon wildfire relief or you can contribute
directly to PDA by phone at 800-872-3283.
Now allow yourself a brief time of
silence as you open your hearts and feel God’s presence with you, right where
you are.
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BAPTISM: Friends, remember your baptism … and be thankful.
CALL TO WORSHIP
Come, let us remember God’s presence
with us.
Let us give ear to all that God would
teach us.
Our
ancestors have told us about God’s might.
They
have celebrated God’s wondrous deeds.
In the wilderness of Sinai, God provided
water.
Through the sea, God provided safe
passage.
Yet
the Israelites questioned God’s presence.
They
needed assurance amid their doubts.
Our doubts can lead to honest searching.
God welcomes questions that seek new
truth.
We
want to see God’s larger picture.
We
are here to broaden the scope of our concern.
PRAYER OF THE DAY
We marvel, O God, at the thought that
you care about us. We are amazed that the Creator of the universe would take on
human flesh to draw near to us in ways we could begin to understand. As Jesus
emptied himself to serve, modeling your love even in the face of death, we seek
in these moments to lay aside self-interest that we might take direction from
you. Help us to humble ourselves in order to obey you, to listen in order to
hear, to care in order to serve. Lead us day and night thorough the dangers of
the wilderness of our times. Lead us in these moments to honest and fervent
worship. Amen.
OPENING
SONG: “Change My Heart, O God”
CALL TO CONFESSION
Like the chief priests and scribes of
Jesus’ day, we are tempted to confuse our ways for God’s way. We trust our own
authority and defend the way we live as if we have earned all that we claim as
our own. We see the sins of others more readily than we see our own. Our
actions too often reflect our own priorities more than the mind of Christ. We
need to pray.
PRAYER OF CONFESSION
We
fear to approach you with our confession, holy God, for you may require changes
in us that are costly. You ask us to have the mind of Christ, a mind free of
pretense and self-interest. You challenge us to lay aside our advantages to go
where you send us. We fear loss of security if we are obedient. It is hard to
see ourselves as exploiters when we pursue advantages for our families. It is
difficult to consider others when we feel like victims. We confess our need for
you and our desire to find your purpose for us. Amen.
ASSURANCE OF PARDON
Anyone who is in Christ is a new
creation.
The old life has gone; the new life has
begun.
Friends, believe the Good News!
In Jesus Christ we are forgiven and
restored to new life!
PASSING THE PEACE
May the peace of Christ be with you.
And also with you.
Let us extend the peace of Christ in
heart and prayer to one another.
GLORY
BE TO THE FATHER
TIME WITH CHILDREN
Good morning Zoey and Fiona. Today I
want to talk about super heroes. Do you know what a superhero is? A super hero
is someone who has abilities that other people don’t have or don’t have in the
same way. They are people who try to make the world a better, safer place. They
do good and fight evil. Many super heroes are fiction. That means they’re not
real, but we tell stories about them. Some super heros in the movies and comic
books are Wonder Woman, Superman, Spiderman, Batman. They can do things we can’t
do.
Can
you think of a super hero who was real? Jesus. He could do things other people
couldn’t do. He could heal people and make 5 loaves and 2 fish feed 5,000
people. He could walk on water and calm storms. I think his biggest super power
was that he could love people—even people who didn’t seem like they deserved to
be loved. The Bible says we should try to be like Jesus. We probably won’t be able
to walk on water but we can love people and do good in the world. That would
make you a superhero, wouldn’t it? Let’s pray.
Jesus,
we want to be like you. Help us to make love our super power and help us to do
good in the world. Amen.
HYMN: “Jesus
Loves Me”
Jesus loves me,
this I know, for the Bible tells me so.
Little ones to
him belong, they are weak but he is strong.
Yes, Jesus loves
me. Yes, Jesus loves me.
Yes, Jesus loves
me. The Bible tells me so.
SCRIPTURE 1: Matthew 21:23-32
And when
he entered the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came up
to him as he was teaching, and said, "By what authority are you doing
these things, and who gave you this authority?" Jesus answered them,
"I also will ask you a question; and if you tell me the answer, then I
also will tell you by what authority I do these things. The baptism of John,
whence was it? From heaven or from men?" And they argued with one another,
"If we say, `From heaven,' he will say to us, `Why then did you not
believe him?' But if we say, `From men,' we are afraid of the multitude; for
all hold that John was a prophet." So they answered Jesus, "We do not
know." And he said to them, "Neither will I tell you by what
authority I do these things.
"What
do you think? A man had two sons; and he went to the first and said, `Son, go
and work in the vineyard today.' And he answered, `I will not'; but afterward
he repented and went. And he went to the second and said the same; and he
answered, `I go, sir,' but did not go. Which of the two did the will of his
father?" They said, "The first." Jesus said to them,
"Truly, I say to you, the tax collectors and the harlots go into the
kingdom of God before you. For John came to you in the way of righteousness,
and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the harlots believed
him; and even when you saw it, you did not afterward repent and believe him.
SCRIPTURE 2: Philippians 2:1-13
So if there is any
encouragement in Christ, any incentive of love, any participation in the
Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind,
having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from
selfishness or conceit, but in humility count others better than yourselves.
Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests
of others.
Have this mind among
yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of
God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied
himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And
being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death,
even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him
the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should
bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that
Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Therefore, my beloved, as
you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my
absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for God is at
work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.
SERMON: “The
Mind and Heart of Jesus” Rev. Jean Hurst
What do you like about Jesus? Some
might say, “What’s there not to
like?” But that’s a cop out. Jesus is Lord and Savior. Yes. But is that the
only reason you’re drawn to him? Have you ever really thought about what you like about Jesus, what draws you to be a
follower? Perhaps thinking about it that way makes you uneasy because it might
then lead to the question, “What don’t
you like about Jesus?” We’ll come back to that.
Think again about what draws you to
Jesus. Most of us are Christians as a classification because that’s how we were
raised. For some, it might be from families who are indifferent or nominal
Christians--a census checkoff for people who may never pick up a Bible or step
foot into church, more about what they’re not.
But for those of us who claim to be followers
of Jesus the Christ, why have we made that decision?
For cradle Presbyterians or cradle
any-denomination, we may have been raised in the faith, taught to believe,
beginning with Jesus Loves Me and carrying through to teachings of accepting
Jesus as Lord and Savior. That process includes being made aware of our own
sinfulness and our need for forgiveness and redemption.
I think we need it in that order. We
need to believe that God truly loves us in order for it to be credible that
Jesus would die for us. Recognizing our sinfulness is also necessary for our
being able to believe in and accept God’s grace. Otherwise, we risk becoming
like the Pharisees who felt they were already righteous and so didn’t need
Jesus.
It would seem that our response to
Jesus falls into two categories. The first is the personal. We hear the
expression about having a personal relationship with Jesus. This is important.
Think about the people Jesus interacted with in scripture. There were all those
people who were healed. What could be more personal than that? He saw them,
really saw who they were, saw their need physically, but also saw all the ways
their infirmity limited their lives and affected them emotionally. And he
cared.
It mattered to Jesus that they were
hurting, isolated, excluded, derided, looked down on. He cared about those
lepers who had to be separate from everyone they loved, from worshiping, from
being part of a community, from being touched. You get a very, very small sense
of it with the Covid distancing. Jesus cared about the grief of a mother whose only
son had died. He cared about a blind man whose world was the narrow scope of
the spot from which he begged for change so he could eat.
He cared not just for the individual
but for the multitudes as he broke bread and fish and fed them. Even as he looked
out over the crowds and had compassion for them, he saw each one in that crowd
as a person and he loved them and cared for them even though many of them
brought their problems on themselves.
He cared about the people he healed
emotionally and spiritually. He forgave the woman caught in adultery when the
righteous wanted to stone her to death. He cared about her having a new life
and new beginnings even though, by their laws, she didn’t deserve it. He ate at
the home of the tax collector Zacchaeus, offering him acceptance and inclusion
when Zacchaeus’ public experience was scorn. Jesus encountered the woman at the
well and offered acceptance, living waters, and new hope, though she was by ethnicity
considered a foreigner and an enemy. Jesus refused to discount the children
just because they were powerless and vulnerable. He blessed them. He socialized
with the outcast, the unimportant, the undesirable, the vulnerable.
These
are things that draw us to Jesus. Because if it can happen for them, it can
happen for us. We know what it’s like to feel lonely or scared or rejected. We
know what it’s like to feel like you’re on the outside, looking in and don’t
belong or aren’t accepted. We know what it is to carry shame for something
we’ve done. We know how it is to feel like we’ve burned bridges and don’t have
a way to get back, to go home. We know what ‘lost’ feels like. We know what it
is to feel that we are worthless, unloved and unlovable. We know what it is to
struggle with problems of our own making.
Of course we are drawn to Jesus! In
Jesus, we find the one who accepts us and loves us exactly as we are, despite
all the ways we’ve messed up in our lives. We find in Jesus the one whose love
and grace lifts us above every sinful, hurtful thing we’ve ever done and gives
us a fresh start. In Jesus, we find comfort and assurance and encouragement, In
Jesus we can feel loved.
As we experience all that, we are
bound to feel our unworthiness. We know the sins of our lives. We know how we
have hurt other people. We know how we have failed to live our own lives in a
way that merits the sacrifice Jesus made for us. In Jesus we discover grace in
all its facets. We find forgiveness and the burden of our past failings lifted
from our shoulders. For all that Jesus is, for all that he has done in our
lives, we are ready to proclaim him Lord and Savior. This is as it should be.
I said there are two aspects of our
response to Jesus. The first is personal and we’ve just covered that. The
second is public. Or maybe other ways of looking at it is that the first is inward
and the second is outward; the first is feeling, the second is doing.
Over and over, as people encountered
Jesus and he changed their lives in amazing ways, Jesus responded, go and do
likewise. Jesus said take up your cross and follow me. He said love your enemy.
Love your neighbor as yourself. Treat others as you want to be treated. Love as
you have been loved. He said, as you have done to the least of these you have
done to me.
He not only dealt with people on an
individual level about their own personal issues but he also taught the crowds
about how to live their lives in relationship to each other. Those teachings
began early in the gospels: follow me, be fishers of men, be light, be salt, be
peacemakers, resolve your anger or disagreement with another person, turn the
other cheek, go the extra mile, show mercy, forgive.
Jesus talked about money. Don’t trust
the deceitfulness of wealth; it can close you to receiving and following God’s
word. Give your alms in secret and without expecting something back in return.
Lay up treasures in heaven not on earth. Sell what you have and give to the
poor. You can’t serve God and money. It’s hard for a rich person to enter the
kingdom of heaven.
Do not judge, Jesus said, or you’ll be
judged in the same way. Jesus said, I desire mercy, not sacrifice. He declared
as evil murder, adultery, fornication, false witness and slander, things that
hurt others. He warned about profiting from the ways of the world and in the
process losing your soul. Find, receive and restore the lost. Be a healer.
Proclaim the good news. Be a servant. Feed my sheep, take care of my lambs.
As he taught and modeled it,
relationship with Jesus was not just about us and Jesus. It was also very much
about us and us. For Jesus, there were no special little cliques with insiders
and outsiders, included and excluded. We are all the family of God. When Jesus
died and was resurrected, the torch of his mission passed on to his followers.
That’s us according to our claim.
I started out asking what you liked
about Jesus and alluded to what we might not
like about Jesus. We might be uncomfortable with that question, ‘what don’t you like about Jesus?’ because
there are some things we don’t like
about Jesus. If we liked everything about Jesus, we would not just be
proclaiming his lordship and our love for him, we’d also be following his
teachings.
We may not like what Jesus says about
what we do with our wealth. We might not like Jesus suggesting that getting
caught up in and following the ways of the world goes against what God has in
mind for the kingdom of heaven. We may find Jesus’ treatment of our enemies
distasteful—forgiving them, loving them, doing good for them, blessing them. We
may very much disagree with Jesus about how poor people should be treated along
with the foreigner, the outcast, the unwanted, those of whom we disapprove. Too
often, we live out our disagreements with Jesus’ teachings by simply ignoring
them or even intentionally opposing them and that’s likely what led Mohandas
Gandhi, the celebrated pacifist to declare, “I like your Christ, I do not like
your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”1 Are we
unlike our Christ?
In today’s passage, we are urged to be
of the same mind and have the same love as Jesus. If we were to do that, then
we would look closely again at why we are drawn to Jesus, what Jesus has meant
in our lives. How have our deepest longings been met through our relationship
with Jesus? Where have we found comfort and healing and forgiveness? How is our
hope anchored in him?
As we think about those things and
understand that Jesus is able to fulfill those needs within us because Jesus
loves us, then it’s a small step to being a follower. If we are to have the
same mind and same love as Jesus, we will want for others what we have
received. And then we will take action, doing what is in our power to make that
happen.
If we have found healing and hope, acceptance
and inclusion, worth and dignity, we will want that for others. Not only will
we want it for others, we will work it, for justice, for human rights and human
dignity, for sufficiency for all, If we have found peace, we will want to be
peacemakers. If we have found and claimed that abundant life of which Jesus
spoke, we will want that abundant life for others. We will, as Paul instructs,
look to the interests of others, not just our own interests. We will, as Jesus
commanded, feed his sheep and take care of his lambs.
As we live out the call of Jesus on
our lives, as we fulfill both the personal and the public aspects of our faith,
the feeling and the doing, we will, indeed, be working out our own salvation.
If we dare to do that, we do it with fear and trembling. God is at work in you,
to will and to work for God’s good pleasure. Will we resist, picking and
choosing what we are willing to follow or will we give our all for the Lord and
Savior who loved us and all people enough to die for us?
1Feasting on the
Word, Year A, Volume 4, p. 110, Westminster John Knox Press, Louisville, 2011
HYMN: “O
For a World”
PRAYERS OF THE
PEOPLE AND THE LORD’S PRAYER
God, teach us to love—when it’s hard,
when we don’t have time, when we’re tired, when we feel it’s just one more
demand on us, when we don’t have the patience or the endurance. Teach us to
love with a love that is about the other person, not about us. Teach us to be
genuine in our love. And remind us, Lord, in all of these ways of loving, that
that is how you love us.
God who knows our deepest thoughts, we
pray for ourselves. We lift up to you our fears and our joys. We place in your
tender care all those uncertainties about the present and the future as well as
those things in the past we have trouble letting go of. We pray, O Lord, for
healing in our relationships, for the ability to forgive, for the strength to
reach out and make amends. We pray that you would speak within us, leading and
guiding us to more faithful discipleship.
It is that call to discipleship that
leads us to pray for your children everywhere, to use the skills and resources
you have provided us in order to bring hope and healing to your people. There
is so much pain in the world, Holy God, and because we, too, have felt pain, we
know what it is like. Grant us the courage, the compassion, the commitment to
do what is in our power to support and enable your kingdom work.
We pray for a just peace, an end to
the virus and an end to the wildfires, for peace between our leaders and peace
between countries. Guide us to right decisions and voices and actions. While we
work and wait for this to happen, grant us courage to live these times in a way
that reflects your teachings, your love, your grace.
We pray for those close to us,
for comfort for Duane VanCleave and family, for Darlene Wingfield …
Lois White … Virginia … Cherry … Judy’s
daughter Rosa … John Matthews … Margaret Dunbar … Trisha … Dave … Jacob … Joyce
… Jennifer … Chuck … Courtney … Ethel … Helen. (Additional prayers …………)
God
who guides our lives, we entrust to you these prayers and those that remain yet
in our hearts as we pray the prayer Jesus taught: 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 debts as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into
temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power
and the glory forever. Amen.
CALL TO OFFERING
As Christ gave up selfish ambition and
conceit for human beings like us, may we offer our best for sisters and
brothers who need the message we can send and the practical help we can provide
through our offerings.
DOXOLOGY
PRAYER OF DEDICATION
Holy God, we bring before you the offerings of our
financial resources and the actions of our lives. We give because you have
gifted us in so many ways. We give because we care about all those you have
called us to love. Bless our giving, bless our intentions, bless our ministry,
we pray. Amen.
CLOSING HYMN: “All
Hail the Power of Jesus Name”
CHARGE AND BENEDICTION
Your charge for the week is to really
listen to what you hear and see and to hold it up to the measure of Jesus’
teachings. In the same way, hold up your own words and actions and see if they
are consistent with what we say, as Christians, we believe.
And remember … that the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the
love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit is with you now and always.
Amen.
CHORAL RESPONSE
May the Lord, Mighty God, bless and keep you
forever. Grant you peace, perfect peace, courage in every endeavor. Lift up
your eyes and see his face and his grace forever. May the Lord, Mighty God,
bless and keep you forever.
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LOOKING
AHEAD
September 27 following worship Deacons
October 6 10:30
a.m. Women’s Spirituality
October 11 following worship M&M
PRAYER
CARE:
Duane VanCleave
and family, Lois White (lymphoma), Virginia DesIlets (broken hip), Darlene
Wingfield (heart valve, pulmonary fibrosis, breast cancer), Margaret Dunbar
(fall/broken tailbone), Judy’s daughter Rosa Lester (retinal bleed), John
Matthews (cancer), Trisha Cagley (health problems), Dave Clark (kidney cancer),
Jacob Cunningham, Joyce Sahlberg (health issues), Jennifer Schirm
(Parkinson’s), Chuck VanHise (leg/walking rehab), and Courtney Ziegler
(Huntington’s).
LECTIONARY
FOR 10/4/20
Exodus
20:1-4, 7-9, 12-20; Psalm 19; Philippians 3:4b-14;
Matthew
21:33-46
