March 6, 2022 Worship

 PIONEER PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH

Worship via Blog                                         1^st Sunday in Lent                                         March 6, 2022   

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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.

 

We will share the Lord’s Supper as part of this worship service. So please pause and gather your choice of bread and beverage. While the bread and grape juice served in community and led by the pastor in person is our tradition, we are facing times that call for us to do worship in new ways rather than being tied to rigid tradition—much like the early church.

 

-          PNC meets Monday at 8:00 a.m.

-          Session meets Tuesday at 6:00 p.m.

-          No Great Figures of the New Testament this week

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

-          Soup Supper devotionals begin on Thursday at 5:30

-          M&M meets next Sunday following worship

-          Daylight Savings Time begins next Sunday: spring forward!

 

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

Gather to remember and share stories of faith;

rejoice in the goodness of the loving God.

Before our stories began, there was God;

Through all our days, God walks with us.

Worship the one who gives and sustains life;

Sing praises to the one who is our refuge.

There is no place we can go where God is not;

Amid life’s terrors, God’s promises hold true.

Delight in God, whose protection we enjoy;

Celebrate with the God, who frees us for new possibilities.

We call out to God, expecting to be heard;

We listen, knowing there is truth to be received.

 

*PRAYER OF THE DAY

God of history, whose Word is alive in us, write your truth into our lives this day. Work your signs and wonders in our midst. Show us your salvation. Be present in our troubles and in our triumphs. Lead us away from bondage to things that do not matter. Show us the better land you intend for us, where barriers no longer divide and true community is born. Amen.

 

*OPENING SONG:                                      “Justified Freely”                                                    LU #77

 

CALL TO CONFESSION

Come, all who have inflicted or accepted oppression; we share in the world’s sin. Come, all who make distinctions among people; we participate in the brokenness of God’s family. Come, all who respond to the false voices of the world; God is calling us away from our former limitations.

 

PRAYER OF CONFESSION

Sovereign God, we confess our desire to reshape your world to our own advantage. We are more concerned with what we eat than with who will get to eat today. Our own security is more important to us than the health and safety of all your children. We prefer that you keep your distance from us unless we need you. We like promises without commands, gifts without responsibilities. O God, we confess that our ways don’t work. Turn us around for true worship and services, as a forgiven and forgiving people. (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:          Romans 10:8b-13

The word is near you, on your lips and in your heart (that is, the word of faith which we preach); because, if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For man believes with his heart and so is justified, and he confesses with his lips and so is saved. The scripture says, "No one who believes in him will be put to shame." For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all and bestows his riches upon all who call upon him. For, "everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved."

 

SCRIPTURE 2:         Luke 4:1-13

And Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan, and was led by the Spirit for forty days in the wilderness, tempted by the devil. And he ate nothing in those days; and when they were ended, he was hungry. The devil said to him, "If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread." And Jesus answered him, "It is written, `Man shall not live by bread alone.'" And the devil took him up, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time, and said to him, "To you I will give all this authority and their glory; for it has been delivered to me, and I give it to whom I will. If you, then, will worship me, it shall all be yours." And Jesus answered him, "It is written, `You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve.'" And he took him to Jerusalem, and set him on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to him, "If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here; for it is written, `He will give his angels charge of you, to guard you,' and `On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.'" And Jesus answered him, "It is said, `You shall not tempt the Lord your God.'" And when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from him until an opportune time.

 

SERMON:                                                           “Tempted”                                     Rev. Jean Hurst

 

Rising from the waters of his baptism, Jesus sees the heavens open and the Holy Spirit come down upon him like a dove. A voice from heaven proclaims, “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.” And then the Holy Spirit leads Jesus into the wilderness. There, Jesus wrestles with what it means to be the Son of God and how he is to live out his mission. While he is there, sorting things out, the devil approaches him.

You’ve heard the expression, “God’s timing.” Consider that evil also has a sense of timing. Temptation will often come when we are at our most vulnerable. For Jesus it was after forty days in a harsh, unforgiving environment. He was hungry, lonely, and dirty. He was probably yearning for a hot meal, a bath, and his own bed and pillow. He was likely feeling overwhelmed by the magnitude of the task before him and fearful of what he would have to go through.

So right when Jesus was at his most vulnerable, in comes Satan. We often come across depictions of Satan in art where the artist tries to make the demon as ugly, vile and repulsive as possible, rather like waving a warning flag: this is what evil looks like, steer clear. Temptation presented like that would be easy to resist. I’m not convinced that’s what Jesus saw. I imagine it might be more like a good friend who sits down for a comforting chat alongside him. Blatant evil is easier to fight than subtle, insidious evil. This evil, I think would be more beguiling, more convincing, more rational.

A soft voice croons, “If you are the Son of God, then turn one of these stones into bread.” As the Son of God, Jesus had the power to satisfy his hunger, which was intense at that point. He could have rationalized turning the stones to bread. Jesus needed to take care of himself; how could he do the kingdom work if he perished of hunger before he could get back to the people? He’d put in his time in the desert seeking God’s will, hadn’t he earned his dinner? He had the ability and the resources, wasn’t it silly not to use them to meet his needs?

There was an ego hook in there, too. Wouldn’t that prove that he was the Son of God? Beyond the issue of his own hunger and his own ego, there was the potential of doing great good. Turning stones to bread, he could feed all the multitudes mired in poverty. Still, Jesus doesn’t take the bait. “Man does not live by bread alone.”

The devil tries a different tack. He shows Jesus the kingdoms of the world and offers him all that political power. All Jesus has to do is give the nod to evil. Power is a tremendous lure. With power over all the cities of the world, God’s kingdom on earth would be an instant reality. And sometimes you have to make compromises to accomplish your goals, to achieve a greater good. Yet Jesus declines. “Worship the Lord your God and serve only him.” 

Satan’s third attempt has Jesus standing on the highest point of the temple in Jerusalem, looking down into the Kidron Valley below. Jesus likely would be remembering the rabbinic saying, “When the King, the Messiah, reveals himself, he will come and stand on the roof of the Temple.” Once again, there is the lure to prove himself. “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself over the side; scripture says the angels will catch you.” By leaping from the highest point of the temple, he would make a dazzling entrance, proving beyond a doubt that he was the Son of God. No go, says Jesus, “Do not put the Lord your God to the test.” 

The temptations Jesus faced in that desert were real and plausible. Jesus could accomplish his mission without firing a shot. Preacher Fred Craddock thinks Jesus would be supported in those decisions. He says, “...stones to bread--the hungry hope so; take political control--the oppressed hope so; leap from the temple--those longing for proof of God’s power among us hope so.” Would it have been such a bad thing?

Jesus was tempted to be exactly what the people wanted, what they were looking for in a Messiah. Scripture had prophesied a Messiah who would be a military might, restoring the fortunes of Israel, rescuing the people from poverty and injustice, visibly demonstrating the power and might of God.

But it is not God’s way. Jesus knew that. Jesus refused to yield to the temptation to circumvent the path he had to walk, to take the quicker, easier way, to glorify himself, to avoid his own suffering and death. That would be misuse of his divine power for his own benefit rather than for God’s purpose for the world. 

Knowing that, Jesus faces down the devil. He doesn’t argue with Satan. He doesn’t get drawn into a discussion about it. That is one of the things we can learn about Jesus’ response in the desert compared to the story of Adam and Eve in the garden. They engaged in dialogue with the serpent. Once the serpent got them talking, he knew he had the battle won. All he had to do was convince them of the virtue that was to be found in relinquishing to the temptation. The serpent didn’t say, “Eat of the fruit and you’ll be like me.” He said, “Eat of the fruit and you’ll be like God.” The first son of God succumbs. This Son of God does not. 

Jesus doesn’t try to defend or rationalize his position. He simply quotes scripture. Ah, but the evil one is wily. He fights fire with fire. On that last temptation, he couches it in words from Psalm 91, but the devil’s ploy doesn’t work. Jesus trumps him with a different scripture.  He doesn’t get drawn into a debate, he simply quotes it. And it works.

The ordeal is over. Jesus has triumphed. Some will claim it was a foregone conclusion. It is often said that Jesus was incapable of sinning. I don’t think that’s true. Jesus was fully human even while he was fully God. Because he was human, he was capable of every human reaction and behavior. The marvel is that he was able to avoid sinning even though he was tempted.

 It is in knowing that Jesus was just as human as we are that makes him a model for our own fight against sin and the power of evil. However we depict evil, whether as a personal being outside of ourselves, a powerful angel gone astray, organized forces arrayed against the will of God for the world, or simply our own dark side, we each have to face it. Not one of us is exempt from temptation. Each of us has our vulnerabilities, those wants or needs in our lives most at risk of seduction. Those seductions aren’t going to be dangled in front of us by a grotesque creature.

Instead of presenting itself as something ugly and hurtful, temptation will often come in the guise of the innocuous. It may come from a respected, trusted source, perhaps even from a friend. You’ll remember Jesus’ words to Peter when Peter tried to sway him from taking the path that would lead to Jesus’ death, the path to the cross. It was to his closest friend that Jesus said, “Get behind me Satan!”

Temptation may come from our own rationalizing, from our desire to accomplish some laudable end. And then it is presented in a way that makes yielding to it sound like a reasonable thing to do, even noble and virtuous. It might be in Machiavellian terms--the end justifies the means. If there is good that comes from it, does it then justify what we do to get there? What greater justification that to usher in God’s kingdom? But Jesus recognized that doing wrong to accomplish good was false rationale.

Jesus was armed to combat temptation. That time he spent alone in the wilderness helped focus him on God’s purpose for his life, on God’s will. That was paramount.  Jesus was well versed in scripture. He was able to respond to each temptation thrown at him with a scripture that pointed to God’s commands and God’s will, even when the devil himself tried to manipulate scripture to justify the temptation.

Evil is insidious. The whispers lead us astray one little step at a time. “Just this once won’t hurt. No one will know. I can handle it.” Before we realize it, we’ve lost significant ground.  

How do we avoid the plight of being drawn into evil in little seemingly harmless steps? How do we deal with temptation to sin, which can destroy the image of Christ in us?  How do we reclaim the Christ image in which we were created? 

A Nigerian prayer addresses it. It goes, “God in heaven, you have helped my life to grow like a tree. Now something has happened. Satan, like a bird, has carried in one twig of his own choosing after another. Before I knew it he had built a dwelling place and was living in it. Tonight, my Father, I am throwing out both the bird and the nest.”

We can join in that prayer, knowing that God will empower us. We can know that the very Holy Spirit that went with Jesus into the wilderness goes with us also. We can know that Jesus faced that battle and strengthens us to face it as well. James Healy in “Starting Point” writes, “Whether we gaze with longing into the garden or with fear and trembling into the desert, of this we can be sure--God walked there first! And when we who have sinned and despoiled the garden are challenged now to face the desert, we do not face it alone. Jesus has gone there before us to struggle with every demon that has ever plagued a human heart. Face the desert we must if we would reach the garden, but Jesus has gone there before us.”  Thanks be to God.                                   

 

HYMN:                                               “Forgive Our Sins As We Forgive”                               Glory #444

 

PRAYERS OF THE PEOPLE AND THE LORD’S PRAYER

Merciful God, whose grace is poured out in extravagant abundance on all who open themselves to receive it, guide our Lenten journey that our prayers may be frequent and genuine, our speech truthful and kind, our inward examination be honest, and our repentance be sincere. In all things, help us to endure, that our lives may enrich the journey for all who come in contact with us.

            Throughout this Lenten journey, help us to honestly search our own lives and hearts. Gently hold a mirror up to us, showing what we need to know about ourselves, what we need to change in our lives. Grant us then the courage and the strength to make those changes that we might become the people you call us to be.

            Grant that we may learn to see beyond ourselves, beyond our own needs and concerns and interests. Help us to expand our focus to all your children in need. Grant us compassionate hearts and appropriate actions. Guide us in your way of peace and justice. Show us how to heal a fragile and hurting world. Teach us how to stop our warring with each other, to love each other as you love us.

            Be a comforting presence, Holy God to those of our community who especially need your healing touch. For Bonnie Heinz who suffered a stroke, the family of Kathy Brinkley, the people of Ukraine, Sandra             Borden dealing with infection in her lymph system, Summer Bauer undergoing cancer treatments. For             Darlene Wingfield, Mary and Ray Swarthout, George and Joyce Sahlberg, Margaret Dunbar who are             dealing with declining health issues. And for continued prayers for those in our congregation dealing             with chronic conditions.

            God of peace and love, we place these prayers of our hearts in your care and trust them to you as we join together in praying as 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

All we have is from God. Out of gratitude for an abundance of blessings, we bring a portion as an expression of our love and discipleship.

 

*DOXOLOGY

 

*PRAYER OF DEDICATION

From the abundance entrusted to us, we offer up the best we can give. Guide our use of this precious trust, that it may be spent in ways you choose, in places where you would want it used, for the sake of people you wish us to reach. May we bear witness to your abiding love, not only with money but with dedicated lives.

 

THE LORD’S SUPPER

 

   Song of Preparation:                           “Let Us Break Bread Together”                              Glory #525

 

            Invitation to the Table

            The Lord’s table is not a piece of wood with clay dishes, but a place in our hearts that connects us to our Lord Jesus. It is a place to which we come as we remember his sacrifice, as we seek to experience his presence, as we are nourished to continue his work, as we recognize our community in him despite whatever distance or disease or obstacle that might separate us. It is the place we come to renew our commitment to continue his ministry and mission. Our Lord invites us to the table without condition, simply because we are loved. Come with grateful hearts. Come with joyful hearts.

 

The Great Thanksgiving

            The Lord be with you.                       

                        And also with you.

            Lift up your hearts.                

                        We lift them up to the Lord.

            Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.                   

                        It is right to give our thanks and praise.

            It is indeed right, O Holy God, to give thanks for your amazing grace, to praise you for who you are, for who you created us to be. We marvel at the truth that you are with us wherever we may be. Though we worship from home, separated and for some, isolated, it is still in you that we find life and purpose. We are children of grace and nothing can separate us from your love.

            You have given us the gift of your Holy Spirit who unites us, binding us together as one body across the miles. By your Spirit of grace transform our social isolation and distance into a holy community, connecting us to each other by your sacred presence.

            Bless the elements we each have gathered, elements common to our ordinary lives. Let them represent for us the body and blood of our Savior who gave himself for us. Amen.

Words of Institution

            As we share these symbols of bread and cup across the distance, we remember the story of Jesus with the disciples that last night before he was arrested. He took the bread and blessed it and broke it and gave it to them saying “Take, eat, this is my body, given for you.” And with the cup he said, “This cup is the new covenant, my blood poured out for you for the forgiveness of sins. Whenever you drink of it, remember me.”

            And so we do. As we lift up many pieces in scattered places rather than sharing the same loaf and as we drink from separate cups instead of one, we do so remembering that throughout history God’s people have often been scattered and in exile. Through the power and mystery of the Holy Spirit, we are made one in Christ Jesus. These are the gifts of God for us the children of God.*

            The Bread of Life……………..

            The Cup of Salvation …………….

 

*portions of prayer adapted from prayer by Rev. Steve Kliewer, Interim General Presbyter, EOP

 

Unison Prayer of Thanks

            Gracious God, you have made us one with all your people in heaven and on earth. You have fed us with the bread of life, and renewed us for your service. Help us who have shared Christ’s body and received his cup, to be his faithful disciples so that our daily living may be part of the life of your kingdom, and our love be your love reaching out into the life of the world; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

 

*CLOSING HYMN:                                         “Guide My Feet”                                  Glory #741           

 

CHARGE AND BENEDICTION

            Sometimes our feet lead us into temptation. Don’t feel bad. Jesus was tempted too. Draw on his strength to resist those temptations. Let him guide your feet.

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

                        PNC meets Monday the 14^th at 8:00 a.m.

                        Women’s Spirituality meets the 16th at 10:30

                        “Peter”, Great Figures of the New Testament meets 16th at 7:00 p.m.

                        2^nd Lenten Soup Supper Thursday the 17th at 5:30   

                        Worship and Music meets Sunday the 20^th following the morning service

                        Prayer Shawl meets Sunday the 20^th at 1:00

PRAYER CARE:

 Our thoughts and prayers are with our friends and family near and far as we continue to hold them in prayer.

For Bonnie Heinz who suffered a stroke, the family of Kathy Brinkley, the people of Ukraine, Sandra Borden dealing with infection in her lymph system, Summer Bauer undergoing cancer treatments. For Darlene Wingfield, Mary and Ray Swarthout, George and Joyce Sahlberg, Margaret Dunbar who are dealing with declining health issues. And for continued prayers for those in our congregation dealing with chronic conditions.

 

LECTIONARY FOR 3/13/22

Genesis 15:1-12, 17-18; Psalm 27; Philippians 3:17—4:1; Luke 13:31-35