October 3, 2021
Welcome! We’re so glad you have joined us today! Gathering Gathering Song How Firm a Foundation First-Plymouth Church, Lincoln, NE https://youtu.be/vXcgQL0SQ40 Announcements Call to Worship Today we celebrate World Communion Sunday. With Christians everywhere, we gather at Christ’s welcome table to share in simple elements of bread and cup. In our unity, Christ is alive. In this sacrament, Christ is made known throughout the earth. We come to this table to unite our hearts with brothers and sisters in every nation who seek to know Christ’s presence in the breaking of the bread. (Jennifer Mills-Knutsen) Song I Know That My Redeemer Liveth From Handel’s Messiah Sylvia McNair https://youtu.be/Kg7aXEvCeXY Opening Prayer O God, we join with our sisters and brothers around the world in remembering Christ’s sacrifice for us. For the opportunity to eat and drink together and for the life we have received, we give you thanks and praise. In the abundance of your many gifts, grant us grace to fill one another’s lives with love. Redeem, restore, and remold us until we are made new. Transform our daily bread into the bread of life, and the cup that we drink into the cup of salvation. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen. (Barbara Dunlap-Berg) Hearing the Word Scripture Job 1:1; 2:1-10 There was once a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job. That man was blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil. One day the heavenly beings came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came among them to present himself before the Lord. The Lord said to Satan, “Where have you come from?” Satan answered the Lord, “From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking up and down on it.” The Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man who fears God and turns away from evil. He still persists in his integrity, although you incited me against him, to destroy him for no reason.” Then Satan answered the Lord, “Skin for skin! All that people have they will give to save their lives. But stretch out your hand now and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse you to your face.” The Lord said to Satan, “Very well, he is in your power; only spare his life.” So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord, and inflicted loathsome sores on Job from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head. Job took a potsherd with which to scrape himself, and sat among the ashes. Then his wife said to him, “Do you still persist in your integrity? Curse God, and die.” But he said to her, “You speak as any foolish woman would speak. Shall we receive good at the hand of God, and not receive the bad?” In all this Job did not sin with his lips. Sermon A Matter of Integrity I read in the paper the other day that U.S. Representative Liz Cheney is going to be the featured speaker at the Nancy S. Loeb School of Communications’ First Amendment Awards on November 9, to be held at St. Anselm College’s Institute of Politics. Liz Cheney, the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, has intrigued me for a while now. And I have to say that I have come to have a good deal of respect and admiration for her. Because in the current culture of Republicanism, Cheney has refused to endorse the Big Lie in order to advance her career. Instead, she has chosen to persist in her integrity, publicly opposing former president Donald Trump, particularly since the January 6 riot at the United States Capitol. And she has paid dearly for it. The Big Lie is the belief by many Americans that Donald Trump actually won the 2020 presidential election. According to a new CNN poll released in September, 36% of Americans don’t believe that Biden got enough votes to win last November. Among Republicans, 78% believe that Biden did not win the election and 54% believe that there is solid evidence to support that view, in spite of the fact that dozens of courts have rejected Trump’s challenges to the election results. The truth is that Biden won by more than 7 million votes. The Big Lie threatens the foundation of our American democracy, as seen by the attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6. Stephen Collinson writes, “If the will of millions of people is no longer expressed through voting, what other outlets are there? Already the January 6 insurrection has shown what happens when aggrieved groups – in this case incited by a massive lie – take matters into their own hands.” In this climate, I respect those Republicans who dare to state the truth, who refuse to compromise their own integrity, even if it may mean the loss of their elected position. And it has cost some of them their seats in Congress already. I respect anyone who holds on to their integrity, no matter what, even under pressure. Politics is not the only arena in which personal integrity is often compromised. Larry Broughton writes in an on-line article, “From politicians that shamelessly lie (but keep getting elected) to careless business leaders who bankrupt their own companies (but still walk away with millions), [to] sports heroes who display morals and values fit for a sociopath (but still keep their fans) …, the very concept of integrity seems to be at odds with today’s ‘modern’ society.” In that kind of environment, people notice those who maintain their personal integrity. And they respect them. Harvey MacKay, a business guru is famous for saying, “If you have integrity, nothing else matters. If you don’t have integrity, nothing else matters.” This morning I want to consider a Biblical character who persisted in integrity, even when it would seem that he had every reason not to. His name was Job. And the first thing that the Bible tells us about Job is that he was blameless and turned away from evil. The Bible mentions integrity only nine times, and four of them are in the book of Job. This is probably the oldest book in the Bible and it deals with one of the most difficult issues in life. Why do good people suffer? In other parts of the Bible, the theology seems to be clear that good people don’t suffer; only bad people suffer. They suffer because it is punishment for their sin. And good people are blessed because they have not sinned. But in Job, it is clearly stated up front that Job had done nothing wrong. And it appeared that he lived a blessed life. But then everything changed in the blink of an eye. One day Satan, or the Accuser, came with the other heavenly beings to present himself to God. Satan and God struck up a conversation and God bragged on Job, about how good a man he was and how he never did anything evil. Satan said that Job never lost faith or did evil because he never had any reason to; his life was so good that he would never turn away from God. But if he lost what he had, then he might curse God. And so God allowed Satan to test Job. In one day, Job lost all of his wealth, his property, and his possessions, and all of his children died in an accident. Job tore his robe and shaved his head to show his grief, he fell to the ground, and he WORSHIPED. And the Bible says, “In all this Job did not sin or charge God with wrongdoing.” Then Satan approached God again, and again God bragged on Job’s faith. He said, “He still persists in his integrity.” Even though Job had lost so much, he did not lose his integrity; he did not give up his faith in God; he did not stop living for God. Then Satan asked to afflict Job with a disease in order to test him again, and God allowed Satan to do that. So Job broke out in boils all over his body. He had sores from the soles of his feet to the crown of his head. Job was in such misery that he sat among the ashes. And his wife came to him and asked, “Do you still persist in your integrity? Curse God, and die.” I guess she figured it would be better to be dead than continue in such physical pain. But Job answered, “Shall we receive the good at the hand of God, and not receive the bad?” And in all this Job did not sin. Paul E. Capetz, an associate professor of theology at the United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities, writes, “In spite of everything he suffers, Job ‘persists in his integrity’ (2:3). He serves God without expecting reward or complaining about misfortune. He does not put himself in the center of things … I once heard someone who was in the middle of a deep personal crisis remark, ‘God doesn’t owe me anything.’ Like Job, this person understand that true service of God is not motivated by hope of reward for oneself. That is the kind of fidelity exemplified by Job.” I think that the true test of a person’s integrity is whether it holds up under pressure. A woman named Hannah wrote in an on-line article, “Integrity is not something that can be measured or evaluated when there is nothing at stake. You can’t gauge the integrity of a ship’s hull if it is not being tossed about at sea or scraping up against icebergs. Likewise, the only way to tell the integrity of a man is if you take the person that he claims to be in his comfort zone and put him under immense pressure. The man will either conquer the testing and be proven pure, or will crumble under the pressure and be reduced to the basic essence of his humanity. “Integrity is who you are behind the scenes, when all the masks come off and nobody is watching you. When it’s just you and the silence, and you don’t have to put on a façade for anybody. The test of your integrity comes in secret, where nobody is around to applaud you if you succeed, or cheer you on even if you fail.” The lectionary Psalm for this Sunday is Psalm 26, and I can almost imagine Job speaking these words to God in defense of himself: Vindicate me, O Lord, for I have walked in my integrity, and I have trusted in the Lord without wavering. Prove me, O Lord, and try me; test my heart and mind. For your steadfast love is before my eyes, and I walk in faithfulness to you. I do not sit with the worthless, nor do I consort with hypocrites; I hate the company of evildoers, and will not sit with the wicked. I wash my hands in innocence, and go around your altar, O Lord, singing aloud a song of thanksgiving, and telling all your wondrous deeds. O Lord, I love the house in which you dwell, and the place where your glory abides. Do not sweep me away with sinners, nor my life with the bloodthirsty, those in whose hands are evil devices, and whose right hands are full of bribes. But as for me, I walk in my integrity; redeem me, and be gracious to me. My foot stands on level ground; in the great congregation I will bless the Lord. One of the really fun things I did with my dad while he was here was to work together on a book called My Father’s Life. It is a book that has questions about a dad’s life, from early childhood to old age, with a blank page for the answer. Since he can no longer see to read, I read the questions to him and wrote down his answers. We worked on it over about 4 or 5 different evenings. I had done something similar with his mother years ago when she was visiting me for a couple of weeks. The questions ranged from who his friends were, what were his favorite toys or games, what were his favorite subjects in school, to things like how did he know my mother was “the one,” and what did he think when he found out she was going to have a baby. There were questions about who were the people who had been influential in his life and why, what music he listened to, what his favorite books were. We enjoyed lots of laughs and some serious moments also. One of the last questions in the book was, “How do you want to be remembered? What do you want your legacy to be?” With many questions in the book, he had to stop and think a while. But this one he answered pretty quickly. “As an honest man.” I thought about that a lot over the past week, since I wrote the answer down in the book. My dad wants to be remembered as an honest man; he wants to be remembered for his integrity. And I know he is a man of integrity. And I know that it cost him at times. And I respect him so much because of that. To know that he persisted in his integrity even when it cost him something impressed me when I was in junior high school, and it was a lesson that I have carried with me all my life. I would like to think that I have followed that example, even when it has cost me. Persisting in integrity – it’s a worthy way to live our lives. Song How Can I Keep From Singing Audrey Assad https://youtu.be/Li2hddmy63U Praying Together Concerns and Celebrations: Please share any concerns or celebrations you may have with Pastor Elisabeth. Please note if you do not want this shared with this faith community. Pastoral Prayer O God, we live in a land where integrity is valued, but not always practiced. We hear our elected leaders make promises they have no intention of keeping, while they sell out to big lobby groups rather than represent the people who voted for them. We see our heroes of the stage and silver screen live lives that do not represent the best of who we can be, moving from one partner or spouse to another, making no commitment that really lasts, living for their own pleasure with no thought for anyone but themselves. We read about athletes who present themselves as wholesome role models for our youth, and yet behind the facades are men and women who use performance enhancing drugs or whose lives do not really match who they say they are. Help us to persist in our own integrity, in spite of what we see taking place all around us. Let us live in such a way that our actions match our words, and our words match our beliefs. We want to live out what we say we believe; we want to practice the values we claim to hold. When life brings pressure or stress, don’t let us falter, but let us stand firm. Because when we do, it may make an impression on someone who sees us, someone who is watching to see if we are who we say we are. We pray this in the name of Jesus Christ, who taught his disciples to pray: The Lord’s Prayer 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 trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever and ever. Amen. Responding Offertory: You may send your offerings to Grantham United Methodist Church, P.O. Box 152, Grantham, NH, 03753. Doxology UMH #95 Prayer of Dedication Almighty God, giver of every good and perfect gift, teach us to render to you all that we have and all that we are, that we may praise you, not with our lips only, but with our whole lives, through our Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. Song We Are the World Clarksville Elementary School https://youtu.be/J7711tVOzJQ Benediction Grant, O Lord, that what has been said with our lips we may believe in our hearts, and that what we believe in our hearts we may practice in our lives; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
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September 26, 2021
Welcome! We’re so glad you have joined us today! Gathering Gathering Song Life is Beautiful The Afters https://youtu.be/b0uKlSMU8T4 Announcements Thursday, 7:00 PM Zoom Bible Study Here is your invitation: Elisabeth Smith is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting. Topic: Bible Study Time: This is a recurring meeting Meet anytime Join Zoom Meeting https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86066732644?pwd=emorNUc2RlJkWEN4UUdrZHJZY0o2Zz09 Meeting ID: 860 6673 2644 Passcode: 762435 One tap mobile +19292056099,,86066732644#,,,,*762435# US (New York) +13017158592,,86066732644#,,,,*762435# US (Washington DC) Dial by your location +1 929 205 6099 US (New York) +1 301 715 8592 US (Washington DC) +1 312 626 6799 US (Chicago) +1 669 900 6833 US (San Jose) +1 253 215 8782 US (Tacoma) +1 346 248 7799 US (Houston) Meeting ID: 860 6673 2644 Passcode: 762435 Find your local number: https://us02web.zoom.us/u/kewv02wRTT Call to Worship Life is given to us as a gift and a blessing. Life is sacred because we are made in the image of God. Jesus came so that we might live life to the full. We are meant to enjoy every precious moment that we have on this earth. In this moment, we come to worship and praise our Creator. We lift up our voices in joy! Song I Want to Live John Denver https://youtu.be/Dfqp6c2JKUE Opening Prayer O God, we thank you that you have made all things and made them well. We thank you for the world in which we live. For the light of day and the dark of night; for the glory of the sunlight, for the silver splendor of the moon, and for the star-scattered sky; for the hills and for the sea, for the busy city streets, for the open road and the wind on our faces: we thank you, O God. We thank you for ourselves. For hands to work, and eyes to see, and ears to hear; for minds to think, and memories to remember, and hearts to love: we thank you, O God. We thank you for all that makes life worthwhile. For a task to do, and for health of body, for accuracy of hand and eye; for skill of mind and brain to do it; for homes and for friends and for loved ones: we thank you, O God. We thank you that this life is not the end. That we are preparing ourselves for another and greater life; that there is a place where all questions will be answered, and all hopes realized; that we will meet again those whom we have loved and lost awhile: we thank you, O God. We thank you most of all for Jesus, our Friend and our Example, our Savior and our Lord. In his name, we pray. Amen. (William Barclay) Song Life is Precious Wes King https://youtu.be/fSkYaDlCv8k Hearing the Word Scripture Exodus 20:13 You shall not murder. Sermon The Ten Commandments 6 The Sanctity of Life I’ve done a lot of thinking this week about matters of life and death. Being in a hospital emergency room will do that for you. Watching my dad hooked to monitors, listening to him having a hard time catching his breath, noting his blood pressure rise until it got to 175/90. The list of tests seemed to multiply: x-rays, ultrasound, echocardiogram, bloodwork, EKG, CT scan. The number of doctors also multiplied: a cardiologist, a nephrologist, a pulmonologist, a medical team coordinator, medical students. There was fluid in his lungs, fluid in his legs and ankles, fluid around his heart. There was congestive heart failure. There was progression in his kidney disease that is likely to lead to dialysis when he gets home. There have been text messages, emails and phone calls back and forth between me and my brother. What did the doctors say? What information do they need from California? What information will the doctors in California need from New Hampshire? How soon can he travel? How will we arrange for me to travel with him? Can I scan and email documents to him so that he can get things started with the medical team out there? Can he sign the release there to get my dad’s records from NH on their way out to his doctors in California? Life is a gift, a blessing. Life is something that we work hard to preserve and to prolong, sometimes at all costs. The entire medical profession exists in order to extend human life and increase human health. We are such fragile creatures. It doesn’t take much to get our entire system out of whack (that’s a technical term, by the way). We are susceptible to illness and injury, and we are very vulnerable to germs, viruses, diseases, and physical attacks. It only takes 10 minutes without oxygen for brain death to occur. A person can bleed to death in just 5 minutes. Life is sacred, because we are made in the image of God. And yet, life can be taken from us in so many ways. This morning we are talking about the sixth commandment: You shall not murder, or You shall not kill. Either way you translate it, this commandment is about the taking of one human life by another human. It is the most basic ethical or moral requirement in civilized human history. And you would think that in our current day and age, we would have learned to obey it. But the last century has been perhaps the deadliest period in all of human history. Over 100 million people have been killed in combat, plus millions killed in genocides. And there have been many victims of murder and mass shootings. So we begin to ask questions about the commandment. Is there a difference between murder and killing? Is killing ever okay? What about killing in self-defense? What about killing in war? What about abortion? What about capital punishment? Well, this topic is so huge I decided to narrow it down to just three aspects this morning. I want to talk about war, capital punishment, and abortion. First, what about war? Certainly, as long as there has been recorded human history, there has been war. The Bible is filled with stories of wars. But it is also clear that war is not God’s ideal vision for the world. The prophets are clear that God’s ultimate plan for the world is that there will be peace among all people, with no war and no violence. The weapons of war will be beaten into farming implements. But in the meantime, the world is not currently an ideal place. And wars will happen. And people of faith have come to affirm the necessity of just war, war that is entered into to protect one nation against the aggression of another. Leviticus 19:18 requires one nation or tribe to go to war to protect its own people or other people from a hostile attack. That would justify fighting against Hitler and Nazi Germany, and against Japan after the attack on Pearl Harbor, in World War II, for example, or defending the country of Kuwait from aggression by Iraq in the 1990s. We should never enter a war without carefully considering whether the number of lives we hope to save will outnumber the number of lives that will be lost if we fail to intervene. Anne Robertson, in her book God’s Top Ten, says, “To sign a declaration of war is to sign death warrants for, at the very least, thousands of innocent people … War may be necessary in a given instance, but it’s still not the way God intended the world to be. It might be the lesser of two evils, but it’s clearly not a ‘good.’” What about capital punishment? What should Christians think about the death penalty? First, it might be smart to consider some facts about the death penalty. The United States is the only Western nation that still applies the death penalty regularly, and only one of 54 nations worldwide. There are 27 states in which the death penalty is legal, as well as the federal government and the military. The method most often used is lethal injection. Only three other nations use that method: China, Thailand, and Vietnam. As of December 16, 2020 there were nearly 2,600 convicts on death row in the U.S. And as of May of 2021, there were 46 inmates on federal death row. Since 1972, at least 185 people who were sentenced to death have since been exonerated; that is, they were found to be not guilty of the crimes for which they were convicted. The juvenile death penalty was not abolished until 2005; until that time, juveniles as young as 16 could be sentenced to death in some states. African Americans make up 41% of death row inmates, while they only make up 12.6% of the general population. They also make up 34% of those who have been executed since 1976. Of those wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death, 54% were black. And there is strong evidence that the death penalty has not been found to be a deterrent to crime. Anne Robertson writes in her book, God’s Top Ten, “The evidence appears to be that the death penalty doesn’t deter crime, has the potential to execute the innocent, and is tainted by racial prejudice.” So perhaps the question for Christians to ask ourselves is, “On what basis do we decide that a life is beyond God’s redeeming?” The ancient Jews had to qualms about the death penalty. If you read Leviticus, you will find that capital punishment was proscribed for everything from adultery to teenagers disrespecting their parents. Many offenses that we would consider minor were a big deal to a people who were seriously concerned about ritual cleanliness, what types of materials could be worn, what types of animals could be eaten, and what bodily fluids could contaminate someone. We see a perfect example of Jewish capital law being followed to the letter in John chapter 8, when a group of Jewish leaders brought a woman to Jesus who had been caught in the very act of adultery. (I always wondered where the man was, because in the eyes of the law, he was just as guilty as she was.) The law clearly stated that hers was a capital offense that was to be punished by stoning to death. The leaders were hoping to trick Jesus into saying something that contradicted the law, so that they could arrest him. The woman was almost of no concern at all to them. But Jesus’ response was unexpected: “Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” And the leaders dropped their stones on the ground and left. Because the truth is that we have all sinned. As Robertson states, “the greater law of justice is threatened when we decide that the sins of others are worse than our own.” Jesus let this woman go, only advising her to sin no more. He showed her mercy. Another question to consider when we talk about capital punishment is what carrying out the death penalty does to us as a society. I remember when Susan Smith rolled her car into the John D. Long Lake near Union, SC in 1994 with her two little boys inside and drowned them. After she was arrested, people were overheard talking about how she should “fry” in the electric chair for what she had done, and one man suggested having a lottery to see who might get a chance to pull the switch and kill her. I couldn’t help wondering what the difference was between his desire to kill Susan Smith and her desire to kill her children. While I am sure that God was horrified by Susan Smith’s actions, I also think that God was horrified by the desire for vengeance that was expressed by so many people in the weeks after she was arrested and then convicted of murder. Finally, what about abortion? This is a topic that has been much in the news since Texas passed a law banning abortion as soon as any cardiac activity can be detected, usually at about six weeks, before many women even know that they are pregnant. There are no exceptions to be made even in cases of rape or incest. The law allows private citizens to sue abortion providers and anyone else who assists a woman in getting an abortion, including anyone who gives her a ride to the clinic or anyone who provides her financial assistance to pay for the procedure. Those bringing suits don’t even have to show any connection to the person they are suing. They can be awarded up to $10,000. The Texas Right to Life organization has set up a whistle-blower website where people can submit anonymous reports. I can understand people’s aversion to abortion. Personally, I believe abortion is wrong. But I also believe it should be legal. I used to think that women who had abortions must not care much about the “babies” that they were carrying. But I read about a study on abortions that included interviews with women who had terminated their pregnancies. Most of them actually considered it to be murder. The issue, at least for this group of women, wasn’t whether or not it was murder. The issue was whether, in their particular situations, murder might be justified. I see things as a pastor that help me to understand why women might choose to have abortions. There are young women – girls, even – who are raped by their fathers or other family members and carry their babies. There are young women whose boyfriends threaten to harm them or even kill them if they do not have abortions, because they don’t want to be stuck supporting a child. There are situations where women did not have abortions, but their child died of neglect or abuse. And there are cases of women who are not fit to care for special-needs children that they chose not to abort, but are now unable to help, and who have been abandoned by the very people who convinced them to have the child because abortion is wrong. I don’t want women to have multiple abortions because they see the procedure as a method of birth control. But neither do I want to see young women getting unsafe abortions because abortion is illegal; there should at least be a clean, safe place with a trained medical staff available for women who find that abortion is the best choice they can make in their circumstances. John Killinger writes in his book, To My People With Love, “Undoubtedly, there are times when a pregnant woman ought, for [some] rea-sons, to have an abortion … If one wrong must be committed in order to avoid another wrong, then so be it. Sometimes that’s the choice we have to make. But life is always sacred to God.” I wish that people who are so adamantly pro-life were also adamantly supportive of young mothers after their babies are born. But too often, these people oppose fund-ing the very programs that would be the most helpful to these mothers. Anne Robert-son lived for awhile in a community that was very strongly pro-life, and an organization was planning a rally. She talked to them about doing more than just making a state-ment that abortion was wrong. And she suggested having adoption agencies and coun-selors there with booths set up to provide information, as well as locations for people to sign up to be foster parents or volunteers with agencies that helped mothers raising children in difficult circumstances. They looked at her like she was crazy, and of course were not willing to do any of those things. The rally turned out to be nothing more than people on the side of the street holding signs condemning abortions and those who have them and those who perform them. You shall not murder. You shall not kill. In Hebrew, it’s just two words: lo tirt-zach. But what a complex commandment to obey. All life is sacred. And we must treat life as sacred. But how do we do that in the complicated, violent world in which we live? We pray to God to teach us to love – to love our enemies; to love and not seek ven-geance; to love and to forgive; to love and to see the image of God in every human being. Because only love can overcome evil. And the taking of human life, no matter what else it is, is surely a form of evil. Because all life is sacred. Song The Prayer Mat and Savanna Shaw https://youtu.be/cqFCbtRz1Z0 Praying Together Concerns and Celebrations: Please share any concerns or celebrations you may have with Pastor Elisabeth. Please note if you do not want this shared with this faith community. Pastoral Prayer O God, we consider matters of life and death today. Your command is, “You shall not murder.” Or maybe it says, “You shall not kill.” We don’t know exactly. And how do we know what the difference is? When is it murder? And is killing ever allowed? Is taking another human life ever something that is other than evil? We know that we are all made in your image, God, and that means that each life is sacred. We must treat each life as sacred. And so we must consider very carefully the issues of taking another human life. War. Capital punishment. Abortion. We turn to the Bible for guidance, and there isn’t such a clear statement. And yet, there is the constant theme of love for one another. And when we truly love one another, we cannot kill one another. As Jesus taught us, murder begins with anger, which is a matter of the heart. So, God, help us to remove all the anger we carry. Teach us to forgive the wrongs that are done to us. And help us, as nearly as it depends on us, to be at peace with everyone. Let us demonstrate through our actions and our words that we consider all life to be sacred. We pray this in the name of Jesus Christ, who taught his disciples to pray: The Lord’s Prayer 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 trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever and ever. Amen. Responding Offertory: You may send your offerings to Grantham United Methodist Church, P.O. Box 152, Grantham, NH, 03753. Doxology UMH #95 Prayer of Dedication O God, we thank you for all the wonderful blessings that you have given to us, and most of all for the gift of life itself. As we give back to you a portion of all that we have received, we ask that these gifts be used to serve your kingdom on this earth. Amen. Song Let There Be Peace on Earth Rise Up Junior Choir of Utah https://youtu.be/LuN8ibZdW3c *Benediction May the Lord dismiss us with his blessing, that we may radiate light and life. Amen. September 19, 2021
Welcome! We’re so glad you have joined us today! Gathering Gathering Song All Because of You Jimmy Scott https://youtu.be/auXfFRO86C4 Call to Worship We honor the faith of our fathers and mothers. We use their insights and claim their courage. We want to be equal to the task that is ours. We pray that we will serve the vision of God’s kingdom that has been passed on to us by previous generations. Song That’s My Dad Steven Curtis Chapman https://youtu.be/YMJQo4_aqE8 Opening Prayer (Prayer for a Middle-Aged Body) You hold all things together; how come I am falling apart? Yesterday my ankle was swollen. Today my shoulder hurts. For none of this is there any explanation. I have not jogged nor hoed nor tried to chop wood. My capacity for thought shrivels to nothing right after dinner. Reading at night is now a brief prelude to slumber. If I watch TV, I can’t make it through the movie, let alone the news. You filled the earth with all kinds of foods, but I can no longer eat them. Shellfish causes my stomach to rumble. Hot sauce burns my heart for three days. I watch my salt, avoid red meats, am especially careful of sugar. I will not mention the things that make me sneeze. You who see into every corner, can you know what it’s like to be fitted for trifocals? You who hear every whisper, remember me when I must ask people to repeat whatever it is they’ve just said. You whose arm is strong, have pity as mine becomes weaker. I yearn for the days when I could run the track, throw the ball, swim the lap, work the fields, and party all night long. And I would like one again to chase an idea through the darkness into the breaking dawn. O Perfect One, deliver me from the fear of my imperfections. Grant me some peace about the limits of my capacity to endure. Provide me with those challenges my pounding heart and queasy gut can handle. And help me praise you for the fleshly joys that come in spite of cricky thumbs, fallen arches, and this gray-streaked hair. Amen. (Robert Jones) Song The Old Folks Laurika Rauch https://youtu.be/KaJzMWMJMOA Hearing the Word Scripture Exodus 20:12 Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you. Sermon The Ten Commandments 5 Respect for Our Elders During the past year and a half of the COVID pandemic, there has been a particularly intense effort on the part of Native Americans to protect the elders among them. That is because of the immense respect and honor that Native Americans give to their elders. One woman said, “It is of utmost importance that Elders be treated with respect and reverence.” And Monica Harvey, a Navajo woman who lives near Flagstaff, Arizona, helped to deliver food, household staples, protective gear, and vaccines to elders in order to save their lives. She said, “When you lose an elder, you lose a part of yourself. You lose a connection to history, our stories, our culture, our traditions.” An AP article last December stated, “Tribal elders possess unique knowledge of language and history that is all the more valuable because tribes commonly pass down their traditions orally. That means losing elders to the coronavirus could wipe our irreplaceable pieces of culture.” Loren Racine, a member of the Blackfeet tribe in Montana, said, “Elders are like libraries. Losing one is like a library burning down.” In Oklahoma, members of the Cherokee Nation provided food distribution to their elders, offered financial assistance to those who were struggling to pay their rent or utilities, and put elders first in line to receive a vaccine along with hospital workers and first responders. Karen Ketcher was one of 28 Cherokee Nation elders who died from COVID in 2020. She had decades of experience working for her tribe and the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs. She was known at work as “Granny.” One of her co-workers said, “Losing an elder like Granny is like losing a piece of your identity. It dies with them, and you can never get it back.” Roy Boney, Jr., manages a Cherokee language program, and said that the majority of Cherokee speakers are elders. “For decades our language has been taken from us through forced assimilation. Elders hold our history and culture but also our language… Our elders are precious.” Almost half the Cherokee who received care from the tribe’s health services but died from COVID were fluent Cherokee speakers. Losing even a handful of speakers can be devastating for language preservation and other cul-tural practices. Boney said, “With them goes so much information in terms of language knowledge, dialect, specialized knowledge of medicine and traditional practices. All these things we’re trying to revitalize and save, they’re the heart of it all.” Mitakuye Oyasin, a student at Colorado College, did an independent study of indigenous religious traditions and particularly Native American elders. She compared the way Native Americans view elders and the way we view our elders in American culture. In our profit-oriented society, she said, it is hard to see value in our elders; we see them as incapable of working and so therefore useless. Our elders are set aside and don’t hold important positions in society. People tend to believe that as we age we become senile, our cognitive abilities diminish, and our memory diminishes. But the truth is, that only happens to a small percentage of the older population. Americans tend to put our elders away in nursing homes or other facilities, and view them as senile and fragile. On the other hand, Native Americans place great value in their elders. They treat them with respect and pay attention to them when they speak. They are held in high regard for their wisdom, and they teach the younger generations about the tribe’s culture and history and traditional ways of life. The elders are consulted by tribal leaders before decisions are made. And they hold central positions in ceremonies and healing practices. A Lakota woman commented, “When one of the elders spoke, you listened – it didn’t matter if the person was directly related to you or not. You listened.” And another woman stated, “When an Elder speaks, an informed individual knows to listen … God often speaks through Elders.” Clearly, we could learn a lot about how to observe the fifth commandment from the Native Americans! It seems like such a simple thing on first reading it: Honor your father and your mother. Six words. And yet it can get so complicated. Anne Robertson writes in her book, God’s Top 10, “I don’t know of any words in the English language that come to us more emotionally laden than ‘father’ and ‘mother.’ There are different emotions attached to each one, and those emotions are flattened or intensified, joyous, resentful, or sad according to our own experiences. Before I’ve finished reading the verse, I’ve sifted through my father’s sudden death at age forty-seven and … wanting to have conversations that never happened … I’ve remembered the hymns my mother taught me to sing and that now – as she suffers from Alzheimer’s – that’s about all she remembers of anything … and how difficult it was to leave her that first night in a nursing home. All that and I’ve only read five words! That is, I think, what makes this com-mandment so difficult … Our efforts are overcome by our emotions related to how we experienced our own parents, how we have or have not accepted an identity as parents ourselves, and how we view our own march toward aging and death.” Yes, obeying this commandment is complicated. For one thing, what does it mean to honor our father and mother? And for another thing, what if they are not honorable? Well, let’s start with a definition of “honor.” When we hear “father and mother,” we misinterpret this commandment as a command to children to obey their parents. But that’s not it. This commandment isn’t about submitting to the authority of a parent. “Honor” does not mean “obey.” The Hebrew word for “honor” is “kavad,” which means “heavy,” or “weighty.” Adam Hamilton writes, “We treat our parents as weighty when we take seriously their values and needs and experiences.” John Killinger, in his book, To My People With Love, says, “It has to do with duty, respect, care, thoughtfulness, … and all sorts of human values directed towards one’s parents.” And he gives some examples of what it means to honor your father and mother: A man is flying across the country on a business trip. On the way home, he deplanes at a city in the Midwest, rents a car, and drives two hundred miles to visit his father in a nursing home. A child buys a Christmas present for his parents and wraps it himself. The wrapping is inexperienced and haphazard, but he is honoring his father and his mother. A surgeon completes a difficult operation and looks at her watch. She knows her father will be having a difficult day on the anniversary of her mother’s death. She slips around the corner to a phone and calls him to tell him she is thinking about him. It doesn’t have to be a huge thing to show respect and honor to your elders. It can be a small thing done with a respectful or loving attitude. But what if your parents were not honorable people? What if they were neglectful or even abusive? In that case, I believe that they are the exception to the rule. I don’t believe that God intends for us to show honor to anyone who harms us. Adam Hamilton writes in his book, Words of Life, “The command to honor our parents is not a requirement to continue to be abused by someone who acts in ways that are inconsistent with a legitimate and loving parent.” The best thing to do is to remove yourself as much as possible from the abuse and the abuser. The best scholars today tell us that this commandment is primarily intended to make sure that people took care of the elderly. It was a command for adults to take care of their aging parents. Throughout most of human history, there were no programs in existence to care for the elderly: there was no Social Security; there was no Medicare; there were no pension plans; there were no assisted living homes. Instead, the younger generations took care of the older generations. And the way that usually happened was through the family living together in multigenerational homes, or living next door to each other. Until the 1900s, most people worked until their bodies gave out. Then they lived with their children or grandchildren, who helped provide for them. The Great Depression changed all that. When the economy crashed, all of a sudden there was a tremendous number of senior adults who could not provide for themselves out of their own means. And their families and communities did not have the means to support them. So Congress passed the Social Security Act of 1935 to take care of the most vulnerable Americans; it provided a source of income for the dis-abled and for those “in old age.” And it has been a true lifesaver for millions of people since then. But today most people will not be able to retire on their Social Security benefits alone. The average payout in 2019 was $17,640 a year. It is obvious that retirees will need other sources of income, whether it is from savings, pensions, or investments, in order to make ends meet. But there are fewer and fewer companies that offer pension plans. And many people have not saved very much for retirement; in fact, 45% of Baby Boomers have less than $25,000 in retirement savings. They will, therefore, be de-pending on their children to help them financially. That may mean a return to generations living together in one home and sharing household expenses, or finding other ways of offering assistance. In addition to taking care of one’s own parents, we need to consider what are sometimes referred to as “elder orphans,” people who have no children of their own, or at least none nearby, and who have no spouse or who are widowed. Of those, 70% have no designated caregiver in case they become disabled or ill. Some of them have friends who might help, or are members of a church where people might offer some assistance. But we could think about ways we might help older adults not only in our own church, but in our community at large, neighbors, or people living in senior housing. And it’s not just about offering financial assistance, to our parents or to other elders. Older adults need other things, maybe even more than they need our money. They need our time. They need someone to talk to who will really listen to them. They need our touch, a hand to hold. They need our friendship. As Adam Hamilton puts it, “They will need you to help them feel valued, respected, worthy – in other words, to help them feel honored.” Honor your father and your mother. Respect your elders. It is one of the foundations of a healthy society. And without it, we would be missing out on one of the greatest gifts of life. Song Mother Sugarland https://youtu.be/gpqAk_Js5Yo Praying Together Concerns and Celebrations: Please share any concerns or celebrations you may have with Pastor Elisabeth. Please note if you do not want this shared with this faith community. Pastoral Prayer I’m growing old, Lord, and growing old is hard! I can’t run any longer, I can’t even walk fast. I can no longer carry heavy weights, or go upstairs quickly. My hands have started to tremble, and my eyes tire very rapidly as they go through the pages of my book. My memory is failing and obstinately hides dates and names that it knows quite well. I’m growing old, and the links of affection, established over many a long year, become slack, one by one, and sometimes they break. So many of the people I know, so many of the people I love, go away and disappear into the distance, that my first glance at the daily newspaper becomes an anxious search through the death notices. I find myself alone, Lord, a little more alone every day, alone with my memories and with past sorrows which always remain very much alive in my heart, while many of the joys seem to have taken flight. Understand me, Lord! You who burned up your existence in thirty-three intense years, you don’t know what it’s like to be growing old slowly, and to be there, while life escapes implacably from this poor rusted body, an old machine with grinding gears, a machine that doesn’t work; and above all, to be there, waiting, waiting for the time to pass, time which passes so slowly on certain days that it seems to be mocking me, as it turns and drags, before me, around me, refusing to yield to the approaching night, and finally allowing me … to sleep. How can one believe, Lord, that time today is the same as time long ago, time that went so fast on certain days, certain months, so fast that I couldn’t catch it, and it got away from me before I was able to fill it with life? Today I have time, Lord, too much time, time piling up beside me, unused, and I’m there, motionless, and no use for anything. I’m growing old, Lord, and growing old is hard. (Michael Quoist) I pray this in Your name, O Christ, who taught your disciples to pray: The Lord’s Prayer 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 trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever and ever. Amen. Responding Offertory: You may send your offerings to Grantham United Methodist Church, P.O. Box 152, Grantham, NH, 03753. Doxology UMH #95 Prayer of Dedication You have given us an unbelievable world, O God, of lakes and rivers and flowers and trees and laughing birds. Now we bring our gifts and ask for hearts of sensitivity and gratitude in order that we might properly celebrate it and revel in your love. Through Jesus Christ. Amen. (John Killinger) Song Thank You For Being My Dad Jon Barker https://youtu.be/CWY1vFMdma0 *Blessing for Old Age May all your worry and anxiousness about your age be transfigured. May you be given wisdom for the eyes of your soul to see this as a time of gracious harvesting. May you have great dignity, sense how free you are; above all, may you be given the wonderful gift of meeting the eternal light that is within you. May you be blessed; and may you find a wonderful love in your self for your self. Amen. (John O’Donohue) September 12, 2021
Service of Remembrance 20th Anniversary of 9/11 Welcome! We’re so glad you have joined us today! Gathering Words We pause to remember all those affected by the attacks on the World Trade Center Towers in New York City and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. on September 11, 2001, and by those whose plane crashed in a field in Pennsylvania. Twenty years after these unthinkable acts, we gather to encourage one another and to offer God’s word of healing. We declare that the war on terrorism is a battle that belongs to God. As we grieve lives lost to wars and learn of increasing unrest in the world, we declare with unified and fervent hearts that we will not live in fear. We believe God stands with us and rescues us when we cry out in times of trouble. We trust God’s word and live by God’s Spirit. We believe the God of Peace will heal, protect, and guide God’s people wherever they may be in the earth. We await God’s wonders worked among us, even now. (Stacey Cole Wilson) Announcements Thursday, 7:00 PM Zoom Bible Study Here is your link: Elisabeth Smith is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting. Topic: Bible Study Time: This is a recurring meeting Meet anytime Join Zoom Meeting https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86066732644?pwd=emorNUc2RlJkWEN4UUdrZHJZY0o2Zz09 Meeting ID: 860 6673 2644 Passcode: 762435 One tap mobile +19292056099,,86066732644#,,,,*762435# US (New York) +13017158592,,86066732644#,,,,*762435# US (Washington DC) Dial by your location +1 929 205 6099 US (New York) +1 301 715 8592 US (Washington DC) +1 312 626 6799 US (Chicago) +1 669 900 6833 US (San Jose) +1 253 215 8782 US (Tacoma) +1 346 248 7799 US (Houston) Meeting ID: 860 6673 2644 Passcode: 762435 Find your local number: https://us02web.zoom.us/u/kcyTFEtQFq Song Dona Nobis Pacem Mark Miller https://youtu.be/gZ41dj5x4MA Opening Prayer O God, our hope and refuge, in our distress we come quickly to you. The shock and horror of that tragic day have subsided, replaced now with an emptiness, a longing for an innocence lost. We come remembering those who lost their lives in New York, Washington D.C., and Pennsylvania. We are mindful of the sacrifice of public servants who demonstrated the greatest love of all by laying down their lives for friends. We commit their souls to your eternal care and celebrate their gifts to a fallen humanity. We come remembering and we come in hope, not in ourselves, but in you. As foundations we once thought were secure have been shaken, we are reminded of the illusion of security. In commemorating this tragedy, we give you thanks for your presence in our time of need and we seek to worship you in Spirit and in truth, our guide and our guardian. Amen. (Rev. Jeremy Pridgeon) Song I Believe Mark Miller https://youtu.be/PT-VdH2lwZk I believe in the sun even when it’s not shining; I believe in love even when I don’t feel it; I believe in God even when He is silent. Litany of Healing and Hope for September 11, 2011 When memories of terror reawaken the past, and experiences of death, loss, and grief, then … In your sure hope, O God, bring healing to the world. When anger and inflamed passion tempt us to respond with violence and seek revenge, then … In your sure hope, O God, bring healing to the world. When it feels like every menace, whether imagined or real, is a threat to our security, and fills us with fear, then … In your sure hope, O God, bring healing to the world. When religion is used as an excuse to exclude, threaten, or destroy others, forgetting or ignoring all that unites us, then … In your sure hope, O God, bring healing to the world. When we become stuck in the past, unable to respond to the challenges we face with vision and hope, then … In your sure hope, O God, bring healing to the world. When we wrestle with how to create a better future for our children, then … In your sure hope, O God, bring healing to the world. When we struggle to find a new and peaceful way to live in the world, and forget that you, O God, are our help and salvation, then … In your sure hope, O God, bring healing to the world. Amen. (Rev. Richard Garland, retired Elder in the NEAC) Musical Interlude Barber’s Adagio for Strings BBC Orchestra on 9/15/01 in honor of those who lost their lives on 9/11/01 Scripture Psalm 46 God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change, though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea; though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble with its tumult. There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy habitation of the Most High. God is in the midst of the city; it shall not be moved; God will help it when the morning dawns. The nations are in an uproar, the kingdoms totter; he utters his voice, the earth melts. The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. Come, behold the works of the Lord; see what desolations he has brought on the earth. He makes wars cease to the end of the earth; he breaks the bow, and shatters the spear; he burns the shields with fire. “Be still, and know that I am God! I am exalted among the nations, I am exalted in the earth.” The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. Sermon Making Sense of It All On September 12, 2001, we all woke up to a world that was vastly different than the one we greeted on the morning of September 11. The United States had suffered an attack by foreign terrorists, who hijacked four passenger jets and used them as missiles to strike targets in New York City and Washington, D.C. One of those jets was forced to the ground near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, as a result of an attempt by the passengers to take back control of the plane when they knew what had happened in New York and D.C. There were 2,996 people who died on September 11. People who had boarded planes to travel for business or pleasure. People who had gone to work in the Twin Towers or the Pentagon. Firefighters and police officers and other first responders. People who were watching from too close to the Twin Towers when they col-lapsed. And at the end of the day, the rest of us were haunted by the images we had watched on TV: planes crashing into buildings; people jumping from the buildings to escape the flames, some of them holding hands; buildings crumbling to the ground in a matter of seconds; people covered in dust and ashes; people running from the scene; searchers combing the wreckage for signs of survivors; flyers posted on fences and walls with pictures of the missing; and American flags flying at half-staff. On September 12, we began trying to make sense of it all. For some people, it became a time to express our patriotism. There were flags flying on homes and on cars (if you could find one; stores quickly sold out). Mugs and other commemorative items were sold with the slogan “United We Stand;” I have a Christmas ornament that goes on my tree every year. People cried when they heard the national anthem or “God Bless America” being sung. For other people, it was a time to look for the perpetrators and get revenge. It didn’t take long to identify the ones who were responsible for the attacks: a terrorist organization known as al-Qaida headed by Osama bin Laden. The President vowed to hunt down bin Laden and al-Qaida and make them pay for what they had done. And thus began the longest war that our country has ever been involved in. Not only did we go into Afghanistan, where it appeared al-Qaida was based, but we also ended up in Iraq for a while. We didn’t end up finding and killing Osama bin Laden until May 2, 2011, where he was hiding in Pakistan. And still our troops were in Afghanistan for another 10 years. Back in America, some people took out their revenge on innocent Americans who just happened to look like the terrorists. Attacks on Muslims – and, indeed, on any-one who looked Middle Eastern, were on the rise. Even people from India or other countries were not safe. It is a sad commentary on the depths of people’s fear and anger that they would turn to violence against people who had nothing to do with the September 11 attacks in order to take out their own hostility. For many of us, the days after September 11 were a wake-up call as to how people in other parts of the world really felt about our country. I was shocked at the images of people cheering when they heard what had happened, shouting and raising guns in the air and chanting “Death to Americans!” Many of them were, in fact, Muslims. And the reasons for their hatred are many: the wealth of our nation, seemingly at the expense of other nations; the consumerism of our country; the decadent lifestyle of many Americans; the way America inserts itself into the affairs of other countries around the world; and the arrogance of America. (These are not my opinions, these are the opinions of our enemies.) Some people noticed how Americans came together as a country in the days after September 11. People were – or seemed to be – kinder to each other, more concerned for each other. Perhaps it was because so many people were connected to someone who was killed on that day. I was serving two small congregations in the rural part of South Carolina, and yet a cousin of one of my church members died in the World Trade Center. Not only did Americans come together, but more of them came together in churches. Pews were filled in the first weeks after the attack. People were looking to their faith and to God for help as they tried to deal with what had happened. For me, as I tried to make sense of it all, I kept searching through my Bible, trying to find words to comfort myself and my parishioners, trying to find something that would help me understand it somehow. And I kept coming back to Psalm 46. God IS our refuge and strength, and is an ever-present help in trouble. I knew then and I know now that God is always with us. No matter how it feels or how it looks, God never leaves us, God never abandons us. Where was God on September 11? God was with the passengers and crew of American Airlines Flight 11 bound from Bos-ton to Los Angeles. God was with the passengers and crew of United Airlines Flight 175 bound from Boston to Los Angeles. God was with the passengers and crew of American Airlines Flight 77 which took off from Dulles bound for Los Angeles. And God was with the passengers and crew of United Airlines Flight 93 which left Newark for San Francisco. God was with the people in the South Tower of the World Trade Center. God was with the people in the North Tower of the World Trade Center. God was with the people working in the Pentagon. God was with the first responders in New York and Washington, D.C. God was with the families of those who died that day. And God was with all of us as we watched and prayed and wondered and grieved. The psalmist proclaims, “Therefore we WILL NOT FEAR,” even though the very earth gives way beneath our feet. That is what it felt like on September 11, wasn’t it? Like the ground beneath us just gave way. Like the things we had always counted on just fell apart, like it was safe to go to work; it was safe to get on an airplane; it was safe to live in America; it was safe to be here. And just like the ground gave way, it almost felt like our faith gave way, because I admit it, I was afraid as I sat there in front of my TV for days on end. I was afraid for the first time in my life that I could be the victim of an attack by a foreign power in my own country. I was afraid that I wouldn’t be safe traveling anymore. I was afraid that no one could keep us safe. And yet, AND YET, my faith tells me not to fear. Why? Because God is present and is strong and is my refuge. The psalmist wrote that God has the power to make all wars cease on the face of the earth. He will destroy the weapons of war. And then he will be exalted among all the nations and in all the earth. That is a wonderful vision for the ultimate future of our world. And it is the hope that I hold in my deepest heart. It is what brings tears to my eyes whenever I sing, “Let There Be Peace on Earth.” It is my dream for humanity. And one day, I believe it will come true. But in the meantime, what gets me through, what makes sense of it all to me, is the instruction, “Be still, and know that I am God.” Eventually in 2001, I was able to quiet my spirit enough to sense the presence of God with me, the presence of God with-in me. I got still enough to hear God say to me, “Do not fear; I am with you. I am still God. That has not changed. That will never change. There is still something – some-one – you can count on.” And that made all the difference to me then as I tried to make sense of it all. And it has made all the difference to me in the 20 years since then. “Be still, and know that I am God.” No matter what is going on in our world right now, that sentence can still help us to make sense of it all. Many people are struggling with the ramifications of the decision to pull U.S. troops out of Afghanistan. While some are grateful that the 20-year war is ending, at least in some ways, others are angry that it seems we are abandoning the Afghanis who built a different kind of nation in these two decades. Some are grieving the loss of American military personnel in the war and wondering if their sacrifice was in vain, while others are grateful that no more lives will be lost. And there is the awareness that many other countries are now sheltering terrorist groups who would do us harm if and when they could. We also have a greater awareness of the terrorists who live among us, Americans who believe in white supremacy to the point of violence. But no matter what, may we remember the words, “Be still, and know that I am God,” and let them give us courage to face the future without fear. It may feel like the ground is falling out from under our feet, but the truth is we are standing on solid rock. Song Be Still and Know Steven Curtis Chapman & Caleb Chapman https://youtu.be/mejGZ21N9CE Offertory Your check can be mailed to the church at P.O. Box 152, Grantham, NH 03753. Thank you. Doxology UMH #95 Song Still, My Soul, Be Still New Irish Choir https://youtu.be/LyqEq_a2qGs Benediction Through mercies of your love and grace, and in your sure hope, O God, bring healing to the world. Amen. September 5, 2021
Welcome! We’re so glad you have joined us today! Gathering Gathering Song Busy Man Steven Curtis Chapman https://youtu.be/MoHR240r0AA Announcements Thursday, 7:00 PM Zoom Bible Study Here is your link: Elisabeth Smith is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting. Topic: Bible Study Time: This is a recurring meeting Meet anytime Join Zoom Meeting https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86066732644?pwd=emorNUc2RlJkWEN4UUdrZHJZY0o2Zz09 Meeting ID: 860 6673 2644 Passcode: 762435 One tap mobile +19292056099,,86066732644#,,,,*762435# US (New York) +13017158592,,86066732644#,,,,*762435# US (Washington DC) Dial by your location +1 929 205 6099 US (New York) +1 301 715 8592 US (Washington DC) +1 312 626 6799 US (Chicago) +1 669 900 6833 US (San Jose) +1 253 215 8782 US (Tacoma) +1 346 248 7799 US (Houston) Meeting ID: 860 6673 2644 Passcode: 762435 Find your local number: https://us02web.zoom.us/u/kcyTFEtQFq Call to Worship God created the Sabbath so that we might have a day for worship, rest, and renewal. We are grateful for this good gift! We come this morning to praise, to pray, to reflect, to hear the Word of God, and to reaffirm our commitment to Jesus Christ. When we leave, we will feel refreshed and revived, ready to face another week of our daily tasks. May we put aside all distractions and give this time to God. We want to make the most of this Sabbath time together. Song House of Their Dreams Casting Crowns https://youtu.be/0RwFl5VkZpU Opening Prayer Gracious and loving God, you know that we need a day to rest from our labor and to focus on our relationship with you. And so you gave us the gift of Sabbath. We have not always given this day to you, or to ourselves. We sometimes choose – or are made – to work on this day. We sometimes spend this day doing other things and never giving you any thought. We allow other things to distract and attract us, from sports to travels to being too busy to set aside one hour for worship. There is nothing wrong with recreation or rest on this day; in fact, this day was made in part for those things, as we enjoy activities other than labor to reinvigorate us. But we should also set aside time for worship and for giving our attention to you. Help us on this Sabbath day to worship you truly and with joy in our hearts. Amen. Song Breathe Michael W. Smith https://youtu.be/k8PBakPWph4 Hearing the Word Scripture Exodus 20:8-11 Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work – you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, but rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and consecrated it. Sermon The Ten Commandments 4 What Makes a Day Holy? In her book, Smoke on the Mountain, Joy Davidman imagines a Martian student being sent to Earth on a Sunday morning to finish making observations he needed to write his thesis on comparative anthropology. This is what he wrote: Like so many primitive life forms the creatures of the third planet are sun worshipers. One day in every seven is set apart for the adoration of their deity, weather permitting. Their rituals vary, and each apparently involves a special form of dress; but all are conducted in the open air, and most seem to require the collection of enormous crowds. Some creatures gather in vast arenas, to watch strangely garbed priests per-elaborate ceremonies involving a ball and variously shaped instruments of wood. (The significance of the ball as a solar symbol, of course, is known to every Martian schoolboy.) Others, no doubt the mystics and solitaries of their religion, prefer to address the ball themselves with long clubs, singly or in groups of two of four, wandering in green fields. Some, stripping themselves almost naked in their ecstasy, go down to the seashore in great throngs and there perform their rites, often hurling them-selves into the waves with frenzied cries … After the ceremonial immersion, devotees have been observed to anoint themselves with holy oils and stretch themselves out full length with eyes closed, in order to surrender themselves entirely to silent communion with the deity … There exists, however, a small sect of recalcitrants or heretics that does not practice sun worship. These may be identified by their habit of clothing themselves more soberly and completely than the sun worshipers. They too gather in groups, but only to hide from the sun in certain buildings of doubtful use, usually with windows of glass colored to keep out the light. It is not clear whether these creatures are simply unbelievers or whether they are excommunicated from sun worship for some offense – we have not been able to discover what goes on within their buildings, which may perhaps be places of punishment. But it is noteworthy that their faces and gestures show none of the … religious frenzy with which the sun worshipers pursue their devotions. In fact, they usually appear relaxed and even placid, thus indicating minds blank of thought or emotion … Even though she was writing almost 70 years ago, Davidman’s description of Sundays is not far off the mark! Sunday may be a holiday for most people, but it is no longer a holy day for many of them. Churches have many empty seats in them, while places of entertainment are crowded, and many people do have to work on Sunday. In the United States, this may be the Commandment that is the most widely ignored. We have many sporting events that take place on Sundays. Professional baseball, football, soccer, golf, tennis, basketball. And then, recent years, more and more youth leagues schedule games on Sunday mornings. Add to that people who have hobbies of sports or gardening or hiking or other outdoor activities that they choose to participate in on Sundays, and you can see why the Martian decided that Earthlings are sun worshipers! But people in our country are also notorious workaholics. Some work because they choose to, and others work because they have to. Gone are the days of the blue laws, when almost everything was closed on Sundays. And, as Anne Robertson writes, “Every year another store or corporation decides to extend hours around the clock and across the week. Those that don’t may have given their employees so much to do that they take work home and labor around the clock anyway.” People are overscheduled to the point that they become burned out. There seems to be so much to do and so little time to do it that even Sundays are filled with work. We are wearing ourselves out. As John Killinger puts it, “We forget that we weren’t meant to live this way, that God gave us a day of rest each week to slow down and get in touch with ourselves again.” The fourth commandment tells us that we are to rest on the sabbath because God rested on the seventh day. But some people have a hard time taking that day for rest. J. Ellsworth Kalas comments that “our workaholic patterns smack of a kind of blasphemy; rest may be good enough for God, but I’m above all of that. In some cases, our unwilling-ness to take a sabbath is evidence of our feeling indispensable – the universe may survive God’s taking a day of rest, but it will fall apart if we do so! For others, it is an absence of trust; we’re sure that if we don’t work seven days a week, we won’t survive economically.” Because of this tendency to overwork, to overcommit, to overschedule, people feel emotional, spiritual, and physical exhaustion. In a recent Gallup poll, two-thirds of people feel burned out some of the time, and one-fourth feel burned out very often or always. Adam Hamilton writes that “often it is your health, your family, and your faith that suffer for it.” Author Brene` Brown says, “Here’s a quote I once heard from a priest: ‘If you don’t want to burn out, stop living like you’re on fire.’ In today’s world, we are surrounded by a culture of scarcity that tells us we’re not doing enough, that we don’t have enough and that we’re not enough … I’ve learned that I always have to be on the watch for burnout. Because when it creeps up on me, I don’t like the person I become.” Burnout can have serious consequences on our physical and mental health, on our relationships, our job performance, and our spiritual lives. God recognized our need for rest, renewal, and recreation. And so God provided the sabbath. The commandment to rest was unique to the Jewish people. There is not evidence in the ancient world that any other nation observed a day of rest until the Ten Commandments. And the sabbath commandment was clearly important: it is mentioned 172 times in the Bible, while idolatry is mentioned only 131 times, adultery 69 times, murder 43 times, stealing 28 times, and coveting only 23 times. Let’s consider the history of how this commandment has been observed, or not observed. The sabbath was originally intended to be a day of no work, a day to rest and to enjoy yourself. In the early days of Israel, the sabbath was celebrated as a feast. But with the rise of an organized and legalistic priesthood, this day of gladness and joy was turned into a day of discipline. By the time of Jesus, there was a list of 1,521 things you couldn’t do on the sabbath. But then Jesus came along and said, “The sabbath was made for man and not man for the sabbath.” And the Christian sabbath – celebrated on the first day of the week rather than the seventh – included a feast, Holy Communion. The negative views of the Sabbath in modern times seem to have originated in the 17th century. In Scotland, one man was actually taken to court for smiling on the sabbath! And the Puritans seem to have read the commandment as “Thou shalt not enjoy life on the sabbath.” They drove all the joy out of the sabbath with enforced piety. People were punished for not going to church, and for going anywhere else. According to Joy Davidman, they thought that “a purely intellectual and spiritual concentration on God was the only religious experience worth seeking … And… they preferred negative methods; they believed you could make people enjoy God by forbidding them to enjoy anything else.” I remember my dad’s mother describing the way that she spent her Sundays as a child. After attending Sunday School and worship, she and her sister came home with their family, ate lunch, wore their Sunday clothes all day, and were not allowed to play. They could sit on the porch, read the Bible or their Sunday School lesson, or talk with the adults. And that was about it. The fourth commandment has two requirements: remember the sabbath, and keep it holy. So what does it mean to remember the sabbath? Adam Hamilton writes, “Remembering is not a casual thing. It means keeping something front of mind as an expression of its importance.” The theological foundation for remembering the sabbath is that God rested on the seventh day, blessed that day and made it holy. We know that God did not need to rest; God chose to rest. God established a rhythm between work and rest, and modeled it for us to follow. Hamilton continues, “Sabbath is about stopping to savor, to enjoy, to reflect, to be in awe, to celebrate, to give thanks, and to be renewed.” And what does it mean to make the sabbath holy? The word “holy” in Hebrew is “qadash,” which means “something set apart for God.” To set apart the sabbath as holy, according to Hamilton, means “treating it as a day given to God … God has claimed one day in seven as being specifically his.” It used to be that people would attend church every Sunday unless they were sick. But now church is in competition with a lot of other things: travel, work, sports. As Hamilton says, “We have taken a day intended to be holy, and we have made it ordinary … We’ve overprogrammed it, along with the rest of our lives, so that we don’t have an hour to worship … We’re too busy.” How can we restore the holiness of the sabbath? How can we encourage people to come back to church? Joy Davidman recommends that we think about the fun of worship, things such as sacred dance and church festivals. And she says that we should stop thinking about churchgoing itself as the goal. “God is the goal,” she writes. “If we believe in him at all, we must believe that every [person] wants God in his heart far more than he can ever want anything else; that is, every [person] wants peace and love, answers to his questions, and the keys to heaven. When a church gives these, its doors overflow.” Adam Hamilton suggests that we make a list of four things that renew us or bring us joy that we haven’t done in a while or not enough lately. What if we did those things that renew us next Sunday? It is impossible to overstate the importance of keeping the sabbath. Anne Robertson writes, “The loss of Sabbath is a much greater contributor to the destruction of family and societal life than the divorce rate, homosexuality, … or any of the other things that people like to blame for our current state of affairs. The Bible makes a big, huge, hairy deal out of keeping the Sabbath, while Christians … act as if it’s not even there, or as if it’s obsolete and far less important than other issues that the Bible mentions only in passing.” But the sabbath is not obsolete or unimportant for Christians today. Adam Hamilton encourages us to ask ourselves, What if you made a commitment to remembering the Sabbath and keeping it holy with greater intentionality from now on? How would it impact your life? He writes, “If you remember the Sabbath and keep it holy, your faith will grow deeper, your stress will be lowered, your mental health will be improved, and your work-week may even be more productive. If you are married, your marriage will be stronger. If you have kids, your relationship with them will be better.” So I invite you to remember this sabbath day and keep it holy. Remember the rhythm of work and rest that God modeled for us. Remember that the sabbath is meant to be a day of rest, renewal, and recreation, not a day of legalistic piety or drudgery. Remember that worship can be fun and should involve celebration, that church can and should be the most pleasurable and restorative experience we have during the week. And keep the sabbath holy by not working (if possible), by worshiping God, by not doing ordinary tasks, by looking for the divine, by reflecting on your faith, and by celebrating the tasks done well in the week just past. Remember, too, the words of Jesus: The sabbath was made for people, not people for the sabbath. Song Remember the Sabbath Pillars of Our Faith https://youtu.be/rjP5ZuaubR4 Praying Together Concerns and Celebrations: Please click here to share any concerns or celebrations you may have with Pastor Elisabeth. Please note in the description box if you do not want this shared with this faith community. Pastoral Prayer Great God of Heaven, you who never needed to rest, yet you showed us the rhythm of work and rest, exert and renew. You took six days to create all that is, and then you set aside the seventh day as a day to rest from your labor and take note of the fact that all you had made was good. We need time to not only rest, but to pay attention to your good creation and spend time out in it. We need the opportunity to not only worship you in a sanctuary, but also see you in your works. We need time for our bodies, minds, and spirits to reset, recover, and reframe. And so you gifted us with the Sabbath, one day in seven that is to be different. Remind us that taking this time is essential to our physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual health. Working too much is not good for the soul. And not taking time to focus on you is not good for the soul either. And so we give to you the day you gave to us. We pray this in the name of Jesus Christ, who taught his disciples to pray: The Lord’s Prayer 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 trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever and ever. Amen. Responding Offertory Please click here to make your offering or tithes. If you would feel more comfortable not doing this online, a check can be mailed to the church at PO Box 335, Sunapee, NH 03782. Thank you. Doxology UMH #95 Prayer of Dedication We give thanks with grateful hearts for all that you have given us, O God. And we give thanks for this opportunity to give back to you a portion of those gifts. Bless them and use them in ways that build up your church and bring your kingdom to this earth in our community. In Jesus’ name. Amen. Song Sabbath Day Forgiven https://youtu.be/2XWeNvn2EtU Benediction Having worshiped God in this place, go now into the world renewed, refreshed, revived, and ready to face the coming week. Amen. |
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