Sermon: March 11, 2007
March 11, 2007
OFFERING MEDITATION:(9 a.m. & 11 a.m. – Trudy Bradley) When I was thinking about sharing an offering thought with you today, I was thinking about what our monthly giving is, which is for the church Helping Hand. Of course, when I think of church, I think of family. I was a little girl in this congregation when my grandparents and parents and all came to church. I just got done writing a little thought about my grandfather, Grandpa Scott, which some of you will remember, George, and how he and I had a special deal. I had an ice-cream cough with him. I’m sure at some point in my life I was being baby-sat and had a sore throat and it came up in the conversation that ice cream is good for sore throats, so Grandpa took me down to the local ice cream store and we had some ice cream. Well, it got to be a common thing for me to go over there and when I wanted ice cream, I had a cough, and Grandpa would always say, “Oh, do you need some ice cream?” I’d cough some more and say yes. Well, I kind of think about Helping Hand and First Christian Church as somewhat like that ice-cream cough. Sometimes we need just a little extra as individuals and this is our family and that’s what the Helping Hand money is used for, our family. So, if you have an ice-cream cough and don’t have a Grandpa Scott, you do have a First Christian Church.
PRAYER OF DEDICATION:
(9 a.m. – Mary Anne McComb) In II Samuel, chapter 7, it says, “I have never asked for a house to live in. I have always led a wanderer’s life in a tent. But instead, I will build you a house, says Yahweh.” And now, I’m going to offer a prayer written by Father Richard Rohrer. Ever Creating God, Builder of the Universe, Keeper of Promises. You know how little we are. You know what we need. You can live in a tent, but we can’t. So we rejoice in your gift of this lovely church that you have graciously built for us. May we work here with peace and gratitude and in service to all your people, especially those who are seeking your love and your justice, and may we never try to contain you in our little houses, or even in this one, but follow you in your wanderer’s life everywhere. Amen.
(11 a.m. – Elaine Petersen ) Thank you, God, for the many opportunities that you have given us this past week to work, to be of service to others and to help make this world a better and safer place to live. We now bring to you a portion of our efforts and ask that these offerings be blessed and used for the continued work within this church, in our community and throughout the world. Through these offerings, may many be helped. May many come to know of your promises, and may many experience the love and the life-changing events that occur by belief in those promises and having faith in you. We pray this prayer in Thy name. Amen.
MORNING PRAYER:
(9 a.m. – Patrick Mann) O God, we know you to be the one who changes rivers in their courses and you can alter the paths of stars. We talk about recognizing your omnipotence and that you are the creator of peace. We desire a right relationship with you, O God, and still we find it hard to be good. We are drawn by temptations. We reach for comfort knowing it is at the expense of others. We have no alternative but to confess our sins of omission, not only those that we did not recognize at the time, but also those that we knew about. Given the choice of giving freely of love, of giving tough love or even withholding love, we still more often give no love out of laziness and self-absorption. Forgive us, we pray, and direct us into new ways of thinking and living that will bring us into full joy and the right relationship with you. Speak to those whose minds are tired or bored or committed to routine, and rekindle new happiness in hearts bowed in grief. Put life in the eyes of the defeated. Set the crosses once more in our midst to remind us of the hope that arises just because of them. We pray this in the name of Jesus, Amen.
(11 a.m. – Dale Sawyer) O God, our Creator, nearly every evening we see the aftermath of violence on our television news screen. Not only what is happening in Iraq, but is happening in other parts of the world and even happening here in the Portland area. Often it doesn’t touch our hearts for we have become hardened to it. We see, but we don’t see. And then we learn about the devastation that has taken place in lives within the last week, here in this area, for the family who has lost a child, for a family who almost have lost a father and a husband, and for others that we remember today because of the devastation, the pain and all the hurt that goes on in this world. The pain and the horror of many deeds sees us today. Once the 10th lap of reality is up, then comes streaming into our minds the violence triggered by racism, neighborhood gangs, hidden fury, irrational fear and calculated shootings. The enormity of it causes us to push ourselves back in our chairs, as if that would remove us from this heinous world. What can we do? Will the prayers of one congregation living in the Portland area actually make a difference? Will our Bible reading and church attendance tip the scales from evil to righteousness? How can you say yes to these questions so quickly, Lord? Do you say yes because you know that your Son, who died in a small eastern village of the Roman Empire, would eventually be able to redirect the course of the whole world. At the time, only few people could see any good coming from his death and resurrection, but what a difference a few people have made. And while the differences didn’t come quickly, they came and we thank you for that. And even though we may be a small number of the population of this state of Oregon, help us to respond to the needs of those within our community and beyond, as we give financially, as we give prayerfully, and as we give of our lives that their lives might be better. We can be faithful where we are. We can be faithful at home, at work, in our community. We can honor the name of Jesus and speak of our love for him, and may we do so as we share it this week with one another in retreat, at home, at work, and wherever we are. Bless us, and may the lives that we live be a blessing to you as well, for we pray in the name and the spirit of our Living Lord, Jesus.
THE SCRIPTURE: Mark 8:31-34
THE SERMON: “Under the Shadow of the Cross” (Dr. F. Wayne Bryant)
As we continue our journey through Lent toward the shadow of the cross, it seems important to consider the meaning of the cross to Christian life today. A man went into a jewelry store to purchase his wife an Easter present. He wanted to purchase a chain and a cross for her. The clerk said, “Do you want a plain one or one with a little man on it?” Now the bare cross and the cross with the little man on it, the Crucifix, both have significance to different people. People regard them in different ways. To us, we prefer the bare one because that supposedly witnesses to the power of resurrection, the empty cross. I suspect there may be a deeper reason, however, in that the Crucifix may speak too pointedly to Jesus’ demand for cross-bearing by his disciples. You know, a contrary view to cross-bearing and a popular religious view today is that favor with God results in blessings of health, happiness, success and wealth. The largest congregation in the United States is in Houston, Texas, some 15,000 members, where the pastor preaches the way to success and wealth. Hardly cross-bearing, but it is the Good News as he proclaims it to his flock.
I once surveyed a congregation, asking them what they wanted from their Sunday morning worship service. The answers I got were words like “relaxed,” “feeling good,” “refreshed,” although one person said he would like hellfire and brimstone because he liked to leave church feeling that he had been well-scolded, it sort of absolved him of his guilt. Some remarked that for them, worship was an escape from the rat race of their daily work. One of the things many did not want was to be reminded of the problems of the world when they came to church. I came to the conclusion that what some people really want is a Jacuzzi Jesus worship that will leave them relaxed and warm and bubbly.
The Gospel reading today is from Mark. Jesus and his disciples are traveling through Caesarea Philippi on their way to Jerusalem and crucifixion, and Jesus makes that very clear as he teaches them along the way, but Peter cannot accept that, he will have none of that, so he tries to protect Jesus from himself, “No, Lord, that’s not necessary, you don’t need to do that.” There’s a better way, surely. Mark reports that Peter took him and began to rebuke him in the way one might rebuke a naughty child or a foolish one. Jesus will not be patronized. “Get Thee behind me, Satan,” but I suspect that this is not so much an accusation of evil intent on the part of Peter as it is a recognition that Peter’s is a bad idea. Peter’s view, like ours often, is that those for whom God cares will avoid suffering, that God’s loving care for us means the possibility of power without pain and glory without humiliation. This is the way Peter thinks and Jesus identifies it as bad thinking. There are no such guarantees in discipleship. Peter’s task, the thing that he is supposed to do, is not just admire and adore Jesus, nor to guide, advise and protect Jesus. His task, his role, is to follow Jesus.
Some of you have heard me tell this before; I was speaking to a high school graduating class at their baccalaureate service several years ago in Albany, back when high school classes still had baccalaureate services, that’s a thing of the past. In the course of that message to the graduating high school seniors, I said to them that Jesus does not want us to worship him, but to follow. The next day, the Albany Democrat Herald had in large headlines, “Local Minister Tells Young People Not To Worship Jesus.” That brought some phone calls. Some of them from my Elders. But I meant what I said. Our first responsibility as Christians is to know Christ and to follow him, and subsequently, of course, to worship. Christ has called us into a community of caring people who act with compassion toward one another, as well as those in need, and the challenge in this passage then is not only to praise Jesus, though we certainly will do that, but to follow him even under the shadow of the cross.
The question is, what does it mean to be a Christian today? We know what it meant in the first century and perhaps even in the 19th and early 20th centuries, when those who preceded us gave themselves to discipleship in ways that caused us to read their stories with awe, and one has but to look at the pictures or the words and the names in the windows above our sanctuary and do some research as to who those persons were. Two of them were murdered in their search after Christ. All of them gave their lives in a particularly significant way to forward the name of Christ to the whole world, because many of them were missionaries. But what does discipleship mean to us today? It does not mean martyrdom, most of us are not going to go and be killed in deep dark Africa. It does not require poverty, though some of us are poor. It does not require that we enter vocational ministry, although some are, Patrick and Johanna and Trudy, and others have, Sean and Cathy and Doug, all from this congregation who have given themselves to vocational ministry. And others will in the future as they have in the past.
What it does mean is that we have accepted a new focal point for our lives and that focal point is not our love of family or love of country, although these are certainly important. Nor does it mean that we are good and moral in our values and actions only, although I would hope that we are. What it does mean is that we have faith in Jesus Christ as Lord who calls us, challenges us, to carry his cross, leading us into ways of witness and service. And we do that when we send our young people on mission trips to other cities to work and to learn from the poorest of the poor. When we build a house for Habitat for Humanity or when we resettle homeless refugees from another country, when we collect food for the hungry, and we also do it as we advocate for justice and work for peace. That is to follow Jesus. And Luke adds to the statement an interesting word, one word, in his account of the same event. He adds the word, “daily.” Jesus said to his followers in Luke, “Take up your cross daily and follow me.” That is, it is not the cross of martyrdom but to know that we live under the shadow of the cross, that we live a life that is lived to the full in joyous abandon to the opportunities for service and witness to which we are called and to which we respond by faith.
So what does discipleship require? Again, that is the question. And the answer will not be the same for everybody. The point is that we are called to continue the work in ministry of Jesus, the work in ministry that he did; that is, to do his will and not just our own, and it is not just as individuals that we follow that or do Christ’s work, but as a corporate body, as the church, we are involved in ways that continue that ministry. To follow means to take Jesus on his own terms and to try as best we can to walk in his footsteps of righteousness and witness and peacemaking. That is to follow Christ. May we pray?
Loving God, you have placed us under the shadow of the cross. Help us to live in that shadow as those who would follow in his steps who has given his life that we might understand your love and forgiveness to us.
INVITATION TO COMMITMENT:
(9 a.m. & 11 a.m. – Dr. Bryant) Our Hymn of Invitation to any who may be present in our midst who would like to join with this congregation in its witness or to confess Jesus as Lord and Savior, if someone is so inclined, come and stand with me. (When I Survey the Wondrous Cross…9 a.m.; O Master Let Me Walk With Thee…11 a.m.)
COMMUNION MEDITATION:
(9 a.m. & 11 a.m. – Dr. Bryant) Peter Ainslie was a minister in the Christian church back at the turn of the 19th to the 20th centuries. An ecumenist, he was not bound by denominational lines, but believed in the oneness and the totality of the Christian church. Ainslie said on more than one occasion and reminds us that through the centuries, disciples of Jesus have left home and hearth and family and gone into the world to witness to the saving power of Jesus Christ, and there he said they have established hospitals for the sick, schools for the ignorant and help for those who needed help, and he said their names are Presbyterians and Methodists and Disciples and Lutherans and Baptists, but all are one under the shadow of the cross.
PRAYER OF THANKSGIVING:
(11 a.m. – Ken Petersen) God of Love, Provider of every good and perfect gift, we praise you and give you thanks. As we come to the table, we are mindful that in Jesus Christ, you came to live among us and reconcile us to yourself. With this float and cup, we remember our Savior and his willing sacrifice made upon our behalf. By Your Word and Holy Spirit, bless these elements and this congregation that we may receive Christ’s own life given for us. Forgive us and strengthen us. Help us to be Christ’s body in the world. In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.
