February 20, 2022 Worship

 PIONEER PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH

Worship via Blog                                    Seventh Sunday after Epiphany                      February 20, 2022

 

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.

 

-          Worship & Music meets following worship

-          Prayer Shawl meets today at 1:00

-          Men’s Prayer Group meets Thursday at 8:30

-          PPW lunch meeting Tuesday at noon

-          Deacons meet next Sunday following worship

 

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 near to one another and to our God.

Be still before the one who fulfills our hearts’ desires.

This is a time for meeting and greeting.

This is the hour for quieting life’s stresses and worries.

Wait patiently, for God will be revealed to us.

God is our refuge in whom we trust.

We believe God is here and will be known by us.

Our faith nourishes us as we rest in God’s care.

We are here to receive life in all its abundance.

God is providing for us and has a purpose for us.

God raises us up and sends us forth.

Surely God will help us wherever we go.

 

PRAYER OF THE DAY

Loving God, you bring light to our days and hope to our hearts. We draw near to you as survivors of another week, grateful for your care. You have provided for us, preserved our lives, and invited us once more to this time of prayer. Now we would be still before you, leaving behind our distress and anger, entrusting our weaknesses to your empowering spirit. Raise us up to embrace your way of love. Amen.

 

OPENING HYMN:                                   “Great Is the Lord”                                            LU #30

                  

                                   

CALL TO CONFESSION

Are we envious because the wicked seem to prosper while righteous people struggle? Are we impatient with those whose ways disappoint us? Do we judge others by standards we ourselves cannot keep? Jesus invites us to examine ourselves, that we may be freed from the oppression of our own attitudes.

 

PRAYER OF CONFESSION

Kind God, we have sinned against you. We have judged and condemned those whose actions offend us. We hesitate to forgive our enemies or make allowances for the behavior of those less fortunate than ourselves. We confess that we do not pray regularly for our friends, much less for our enemies. Our giving is motivated by self-interest as much as by thankfulness and compassion. We admit our failures and ask once more for pardon and renewal. (continue with personal prayers………..) 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

 

SCRIPTURE 1: Psalm 37:1-11, 39-40

Do not fret because of the wicked; do not be envious of wrongdoers, for they will soon fade like the grass, and wither like the green herb. Trust in the Lord, and do good; so, you will live in the land, and enjoy security. Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him, and he will act. He will make your vindication shine like the light, and the justice of your cause like the noonday. Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him; do not fret over those who prosper in their way, over those who carry out evil devices. Refrain from anger and forsake wrath. Do not fret-- it leads only to evil. For the wicked shall be cut off, but those who wait for the Lord shall inherit the land. Yet a little while, and the wicked will be no more; though you look diligently for their place, they will not be there. But the meek shall inherit the land and delight themselves in abundant prosperity.

 

The salvation of the righteous is from the Lord; he is their refuge in time of trouble. The Lord helps them and rescues them; he rescues them from the wicked, and saves them, because they take refuge in him.

 

SCRIPTURE 2:  Genesis 45:1-15 (don’t read, go to the sermon first)

 

SERMON                                         “When Intentions Go Awry”                                      Rev. Jean Hurst

 

Let us pray: Father, our God, help us to understand, not just the passage we study today, but our own hearts and how they betray us and your desire for our lives.  And help us, loving parent, to understand your love that overcomes hatred.  Amen.

 

I am not going to begin with the second reading just yet.  In order to understand today’s reading, you need the backstory.  Some of it should be very familiar to you.  It doesn’t really even begin with Joseph’s coat of many colors, there was more before that.  We need to go further back.  And that’s the reality of our life stories as well.  It goes further back.  Back to our parents’ time, back even to our grandparents ... or earlier.  I suppose we could take it back to the first family--not the Trumps--Adam and Eve and their children.  Cain killed his brother Abel.

For Joseph, though, we’ll just go back to Abraham and Sarah who finally saw the fulfillment of God’s promise of a son who would be the beginning of nations.  That son was Isaac.  Isaac had an older brother, Ishmael, who became the father of the Muslim nation.  But Isaac was the favored son.  Where did that leave Ishmael?

Isaac then fathered twins--Jacob and Essau.  Essau was favored by Isaac, Jacob by their mother, Rebekah.  She was part of the deceiving of Isaac in order that Jacob, her favorite, would receive the paternal blessing due to Essau as the elder.  Where did that leave Essau?  Essau later became father to the Edomite tribes who became enemies of Israel.

Jacob had to run for his life in order to escape his brother’s murderous wrath. He fled to relatives in Haran where he falls in love with the lovely Rachel.  He agrees to work for seven years to win Rachel’s hand, then Uncle Laban tricks him on his wedding night, substituting Rachael’s older sister Leah.  He has to work another seven years for Rachel.  Each of the girls is given a maidservant and they become concubines.  Of the four wives, Jacob loves Rachel the most.  And where does that leave the other three wives?  All but Rachel bear children until finally Rachel, too, gives Jacob sons--Joseph first and later Benjamin, for whom she died in childbirth.

Scripture tells us that Jacob loved Joseph more than any of his other sons.  The richly ornamented robe of many colors just emphasized it.  And where did that leave the eleven? The brothers knew they were loved less and they hated Joseph for it.  But Joseph either lacked the perception of what was going on or he reveled in it.  He had dreams that, as he interpreted or as were obvious, demeaned the brothers and elevated him.  In one dream, the rest of the family was bowing down to him.  

The brothers wanted to kill Joseph ... and would have if it hadn’t been for the intervention of Reuben, the eldest.  Instead, they sold him as a slave to Ishmaelites--the tribe of their grandfather’s rejected brother, then soiled his coat with goat’s blood and pretended to his father that it had been found and that Joseph was dead.  It was a time of great sorrow for Jacob.  Hatred gives birth to great sorrow.

In Egypt, Joseph went through his own trials.  Unjustly accused he lands in prison.  He had the gift of dream interpretation which became known to the Pharaoh, whose dream portended seven years of abundance and then a great, far-reaching famine.  Having also proposed a way to survive the famine, Joseph was put in charge of all of Egypt, second only to Pharaoh himself.

Joseph’s strategy involved saving up grain during the good years then doling it out in the famine years.  All of Egypt came to him for grain during the famine, as did those of the surrounding countries--including Joseph’s own brothers.  He recognizes them but they don’t recognize him.  So he plays with them in less than honorable ways, but I suppose some payback is understandable. It is on their second trip, with the youngest brother, Benjamin, in tow, that we come to today’s passage. 

(Read) Genesis 45:1-15, Then Joseph could not control himself before all those who stood by him; and he cried, “Make everyone go out from me.” So no one stayed with him when Joseph made himself known to his brothers. ² And he wept aloud, so that the Egyptians heard it, and the household of Pharaoh heard it. ³ And Joseph said to his brothers, “I am Joseph; is my father still alive?” But his brothers could not answer him, for they were dismayed at his presence.

⁴ So Joseph said to his brothers, “Come near to me, I pray you.” And they came near. And he said, “I am your brother, Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt. ⁵ And now do not be distressed, or angry with yourselves, because you sold me here; for God sent me before you to preserve life. ⁶ For the famine has been in the land these two years; and there are yet five years in which there will be neither plowing nor harvest. ⁷ And God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth, and to keep alive for you many survivors. ⁸ So it was not you who sent me here, but God; and he has made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house and ruler over all the land of Egypt. ⁹ Make haste and go up to my father and say to him, ‘Thus says your son Joseph, God has made me lord of all Egypt; come down to me, do not tarry; ¹⁰ you shall dwell in the land of Goshen, and you shall be near me, you and your children and your children’s children, and your flocks, your herds, and all that you have; ¹¹ and there I will provide for you, for there are yet five years of famine to come; lest you and your household, and all that you have, come to poverty.’ ¹² And now your eyes see, and the eyes of my brother Benjamin see, that it is my mouth that speaks to you. ¹³ You must tell my father of all my splendor in Egypt, and of all that you have seen. Make haste and bring my father down here.” ¹⁴ Then he fell upon his brother Benjamin’s neck and wept; and Benjamin wept upon his neck. ¹⁵ And he kissed all his brothers and wept upon them; and after that his brothers talked with him.

So the story went from great animosity and treacherous, deadly deeds to reconciliation where it would have seemed impossible to bridge such pain and sorrow and anger.  Joseph speaks as though God had the whole thing planned out--but as I’ve said before, that was their belief system back then--that God orchestrated everything.  But God does not do evil.  God brings good even out of evil because ultimately good is more powerful than evil and God is good.

This is a story that is a mirror of so many lives.  As soon as there were brothers, they have been at enmity.  Jealousy, competition, anger, favoritism, bigotry, hate.  We have the examples throughout history.  And where does it lead?  We see it on the pages of history.  We see it on the news.  We see it in the toys our children play with.  We see it in our literature and movies.

Consider the Divergent movie series.  It’s a futuristic story of post apocalyptic society where the survivors of the great wars are gathered in Chicago.  The solution to making sure this doesn’t happen again was to divide society into categories so that each will know their place and purpose and there would be no more fighting.  The categories are called factions.

There’s Amity--the peaceful who spread love and grow food for everyone; Dauntless--the brave who defend the city; Erudite--the intelligent who seek knowledge; Candor--the honest who are charged with justice. Abnegation--the selfless who care for the needy and help others and because they are incorruptible are charged with leadership--which, by the way, Erudite covets.

At age 16, each youth takes an aptitude test which guides their decision on which faction they join.  Families are often split.  The motto is “Faction Before Blood.”  Once they choose, there’s no turning back.  If they fail to pass the initiation tests for their chosen faction, they are ousted.  They become the faction-less, on the margins of society, poor, homeless, doing the menial jobs, ostracized, not belonging anywhere.  And then, of course, there are the Divergents.  The opposite of the faction-less, these people have a bit of each faction in them--and they are the threat to be eliminated because they can’t be controlled.

The system breaks down, of course.  That becomes the tension of the movies.  With the sequels, the plot thickens, so to speak, as they discover there are people outside the walls.  Some live wild in the radiation-saturated fringe.  Some live within another area--the O’Hare Airport.  But it turns out those have been using Chicago as a test and divergents are not considered the great evil.  But ... only those who are 100% divergent are genetically pure.  The rest are genetically damaged and therefore lesser than.  Dividing people continues.

Does any of this kind of concept sound familiar?  In Hunger Games you had the Districts and the consumerism-oriented Capitol.  In Harry Potter you had the purebloods, the half-bloods, and the mudbloods.  In Lord of the Rings, you had the goblins and the dwarfs and the elves and the orcs.  In the Eragon books, in addition to dwarfs and elves, you had urgals.  In Twilight you had the good vampires, the bad vampires, and the Quileute natives who turned into wolves.  In Avatar it was the military/corporate complex against the Na’vi indigenous.  In Les Miserables, it was the aristocrats and the poor. Same with Tale of Two Cities, Oliver Twist, Robin Hood and so many more stories from literature and imagination.

The thing is, there’s not as much imagination to it as we might like to think.  Fiction imitates history.  Our books, movies, and TV shows--not to mention video games--create a scenario that pits one life group against another.  I don’t have to make the parallel for you--you already know it.  We covered some of it about our own U.S. history just a few weeks ago.

And now we’re living it out in the streets of our cities.  Charlottesville, Virginia, is, sadly, just an example.  Hatred is presented in the guise of freedom of speech and expression.  And hatred justifies its own ends.  And people die. 

Let’s go back to the Bible.  The Bible is the story of God’s creation and God’s relationship with that creation--God’s relationship with us.  We were created out of love and to be in relationship with God and with each other--our brothers and sisters.  But right from the get-go, we killed our brother. 

We played favorites, pushing aside our brothers and sisters as less than, not good enough, not worthy, as having been the cause of their own alienation, subjugation, and enmity.  We elevated ourselves as better than and convinced ourselves that it was God’s will and purpose.

We erred in thinking that God only had so much love to give and so much abundance to distribute and so we claimed it as ours.  We were greedy and so we justified taking what they had as our due and their unjust acquisition.  We used deceit and trickery and power to increase our gain even as we waded through the tears and blood of our brothers and sisters.  Theirs was dirty blood so it was okay to shed it.  It wasn’t as valuable as our blood.

            We wanted to be special and set apart and so we tried to accomplish that by setting apart and alienating and disdaining other groups so that we would come out on top.  We forgot what it was to be family.  But Abel was Cain’s brother.  Ishmael was Isaac’s brother.  Essau was Jacob’s brother.  Reuben and Simeon and Levi and Judah and all the others were Joseph’s brothers.  There was an interconnectedness even among those that the ‘righteous’ ended up calling enemy.  That relationship still exists.  The Lakota tribe have a name for it: mitakuye oyasin [mih-tawk-uh-yee oi-yuh-sin].  It means ‘all my relatives’; ‘we are all related.’ For them it’s about the interconnectedness of all life and peoples. Family.  Brothers and sisters.  Children of God.  And we forget.  We forget who family is.  We forget who we are.

Joseph and his brothers had forgotten.  So much so that Joseph’s brothers didn’t even recognize him.  Perhaps if he’d stayed in his place--the place they chose for him, that of lesser than, that of slave, they might have known him.  But the intentions they had for their brother went awry.

Though years had passed, Joseph recognized them.  At first, he toyed with them, his way of getting back at them for what they’d done.  But God had other plans.  God stirred the pot.  What they had intended for evil, God turned into good.  Joseph had a shadow memory of what it was to have family, to belong, to love.  God stirred those memories and emotions in Joseph until he could no longer hold them in.  With tears and anguish, he revealed to his brothers who he was.  He reclaimed them as family.

Can we do the same?  Can we look into the face of someone who is different from us and see the family resemblance?  Can we let go of the insecurities and fears and sense of entitlement and belief in our own superiority and see the other as equal?  Can we stop hating and start loving?  Can we do what Jesus said and love our enemy, understanding that they, too, are family?

There is another story that follows today’s scripture.  As time passed, the Israelites became slaves in the country in which they found refuge.  After many years, God sent Moses to bring them home.  There is a Jewish midrash story that goes with that.  As the Israelites escape across the Red Sea where Moses has parted the waters, Pharaoh’s armies follow.  The Israelites make it safely to the other side and the waters close on the Egyptians, drowning them.  And the angels of heaven celebrate at the destruction of the enemy.  God scolds them and tells them not to celebrate saying, “Those were my children, too.”

Those are my children, too.  Those we would call enemy.  Those we might feel justified in hating.  Family.  Can we love our enemy?  Can we take a stand in solidarity with any who are victims of hate and vulnerable to hate and say “This is not right.”  “This is not who we are.”  “This is not to be tolerated.”  We cannot just look the other way.  If we do, we condone it.  We become part of it.  One of the signs carried in the Boston alternate-protest was “White silence is violence.”  It had a parallel with one of the civil rights slogans, “Justice delayed is justice denied.” 

If hate wins, what will this country become?  If hate wins, what does that say about a ‘Christian’ nation?  If we don’t speak up--if we don’t stand with the oppressed--where does it stop?  At what point does it move from being the color of your skin or your religion to the ideology that you hold or your political views?  How long before it trickles down to us? 

You remember the writing of German Pastor Martin Niemoller in response to the Holocaust--after the Allied Forces freed him from the concentration camp Dachau.  “First they came for the communists, and I wasn’t a communist, so I didn’t speak out.”  It goes through a list, including the Jews, and “...then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me.”   Niemoller was calling for the moral connectedness of all people, for an end to apathy, for an end to looking the other way and playing it safe and pretending you don’t see or hear.  His words are used now on placards in the street by those willing to speak out.  “First they came for the Muslims.  We said, ‘Not this time.’”

People are hurting.  Not just physically.  They are hurting emotionally.  They hurt in spirit and in soul.  There are groups of people who carry the memory of bigotry and hatred and injustice and indignity--of being considered less than, not good enough, unworthy, unwanted.  As much as we would like to deny it, that memory is not just a past thing.  They live it still.  In subtle ways.  It overt ways.  And these, folks, are our brothers and sisters.  We are family.

Will we be part of the hatred, or will we choose love?  We can’t do it on our own.  We can’t fix the world all at once.  But we can do it one person at a time, one situation at a time.  If God could redeem and reconcile Joseph and his brothers, God can help us do the same.  God can stir within us the memory of who we are, of what we were created for, of who our family is.  God can empower us and give us the right words and the right actions at the right time.

Will we stand for what is right and good and noble and honorable?  Will we stand in solidarity with the oppressed and vulnerable and voiceless?  Will we say ‘no’ to hate?  Will we reclaim our family?

 

HYMN:                                                   “God of the Sparrow”                                                  Glory #22

 

PRAYERS OF THE PEOPLE AND THE LORD’S PRAYER

            Holy God, we bow before you in awe. We see through human eyes; we respond through hearts that know fear and confusion. You see us through eyes of love, through a heart that searches us out and seeks to reconcile with us no matter how we have failed you, denied you, betrayed you, or kept silent when we should have spoken. God, that is a love we find hard to comprehend. You loved us so much that you hung on that cross. You see each one of us as an individual, precious in your sight. You call us beloved. Grant us the strength and courage, Lord, to live into that. Help us to see each other through your eyes, to love each other with your heart.

            It is with that love, however limited, that we lift up to you those of our families, our congregation our community. We pray for:

God, we have brought to you those who are close to us, those whom we love. As Jesus taught, we also pray for our enemies, for those who don’t love us, for those who are lost and alone, for those who are frail in mind or body, for those who hunger, for those who fear. We know that your love embraces them all—help us to love the same way.

We pray in the name of Jesus 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 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

Our prosperity in comparison with most of the world’s people gives us the joyous opportunity to be generous. We can go beyond the expected tithes and offerings required of our spiritual ancestors. We are privileged to offer mercy and help that can transform the lives of others. Let us give with delight, that our brothers and sisters may live.

 

DOXOLOGY

 

PRAYER OF DEDICATION

Receive our joy, O God along with our gifts. We reach out with this offering to do good in and through our church. Through our shared life in this community of faith, may other lives be touched and may the grace of love of Jesus be shared.

 

CLOSING HYMN:                       “Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee”                                         Glory #611

 

CHARGE AND BENEDICTION

Jesus set the bar high. Are you up to the challenge? Your charge for the week is to see how many of Jesus’ teachings for today you can accomplish. As you do 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

All of February the HHOPE Competition

February 21         PNC meeting at 8:00 a.m.

February 22         Great Figures of the New Testament at 7:00pm

February 24         Men’s Prayer Group at 8:30am

February 27         Deacon Meeting

 

PRAYER CARE:

For Ron Schirm (complications from surgery), Tina Bossuot (Alzheimer's) Mary and Ray Swarthout, Somer Bauer (breast cancer), Trisha Cagley (additional health concerns), Virginia DesILets, Margaret Dunbar (Ashley Manor), George and Joyce Sahlberg, Darlene Wingfield (pulmonary fibrosis and breast cancer), Courtney Ziegler (Huntington's), Verna's sister (COPD), and Tasha Seizemore (Crohn's). Continued prayers for those in our congregation dealing with chronic conditions.

 

LECTIONARY FOR 2/27/22

Isaiah 55:10-13; Psalm 92:1-4, 12-15; 1 Corinthians 15:51-58; Luke 6:39-49