Presented February 9, 2020 at Bethany Presbyterian Church, Sacramento CA
The service for which this sermon is posted was on the second Sunday of February, which celebrates BOY SCOUT SUNDAY. For that reason, the entire Order of Worship has been posted, including notes (in red), in case anyone wants to duplicate the service or get ideas from it. Thank you, Paul Douglas, for the idea and the many helps to include much of the Boy Scout Service into our service.
CENTERING THOUGHT (Taken from the Scout Oath)
Renew in me the strength to be loyal to our calling in baptism as God’s disciples in the world; the courage to reach out to those who need help and to ask for help when we need it.
To be a friend to all people; courteous to all, remembering the dignity that Christ fills in us.
A glad heart rejoices in being kind to people, to animals, and to earth on which we live and a cheerful spirit, filled with God’s love, so that we may be kind to ourselves.
Give me the courage to love and serve God, who loves and serves me.
PRELUDE
(Natalya’s choice)
WELCOME AND ANNOUNCEMENT FOR SCOUTING SUNDAY
Welcome all scouts – Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, Camp Fire Girls, Cub Scouts, Brownies, and all others. Ask anyone who was ever involved in scouting to stand to be recognized.
GATHERING SONG (Please stand)
God Bless America (First verse)
Flag escort by John Douglas and Connor Leibrock
LEADER 1 WILL POUR THE WATER WHILE LEADER 2 READS
CALL TO WORSHIP (from Psalm 112)
LEADER: Happy are those who fear the Lord and have great delight in God’s commandments!
ALL: Their descendants will be mighty in the land; the generation of the upright will be blessed.
LEADER: Wealth and riches will be in their house, and their righteousness will last forever.
ALL: Light shines in the darkness for the upright; the righteous are merciful and full of compassion.
LEADER: The righteous will be kept in everlasting remembrance.
ALL: They will not be afraid. Their heart is right. They put their trust in the Lord.
GATHERING SONG (remain standing)
Lord, Listen to Your Children Praying #2193
PRAYER OF CONFESSION & ASSURANCE
Reader 2 reads
Please use resources from book
PASSING THE PEACE
LDR: May the Peace of Christ be with you.
ALL: And also with you
LDR: Greet each other with the peace of Christ
GLORIA PATRI
Please print words
SCRIPTURE READING Isaiah 58:5-10
(Reader 1)
(See Below. Please make the scripture reading below available to Worship Leaders, as it is slightly different than reading direct from the Bible.)
ANTHEM
When Morning Lights the Eastern Skies #250
SERMON
“The Word and the Will” Jim Guida
OFFERTORY
Reader 1
Prayer
Your importance in our lives, O God, is reflected in our gifts. We return to you, through the ministry and outreach of this church, all that you have entrusted to us. We promise that these offerings will not be the end of our giving. We will also invest our time and abilities in your work of healing, comforting, teaching, guiding, and proclaiming good news. Bless each gift, whatever its size, and multiply the good to be done through our talents and treasure. Amen.
CLOSING HYMN
Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee #464
BENEDICTION
Go from here, refreshed in the Word of our Lord and Savior. Let your light shine before all you meet this week, that they may see your good works and glorify Christ Jesus, who is with us always.
POSTLUDE
(Suggested – “You Light Up My Life” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b07-yKnKRMQ)
Old Testament
Isaiah 58:5-10
Isaiah 58 deals with Biblical Fasting. While we can fast from anything, we usually assume that a fast is a change of eating habits, so that we may focus our thoughts on God. Fasting is found over 50 times throughout the Old and New Testaments of the Bible.
ISAIAH 58 5-10
Is this the kind of fast I have chosen, only a day for people to humble themselves? Is it only for bowing one’s head like a reed and for lying in sackcloth and ashes? Is that what you call a fast, a day acceptable to the Lord?
“Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke?
Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter— when you see the naked, to clothe them, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?
Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear; then your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard.
Then you will call, and the Lord will answer; you will cry for help, and God will say: Here am I. “If you do away with the yoke of oppression, with the pointing finger and malicious talk, and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday.
(This is the word of God)
SERMON – THE WORD AND THE WILL
Good morning. As your preacher for the day, it is my privilege, pleasure, and responsibility to bring you the word of God as it is given to me.
“I don’t come proclaiming the mystery of God to you in fancy words or touting my graduate degree in theology. All I have is the Gospel of Jesus Christ and his crucifixion and resurrection. And I came to be here in weakness and in fear and in much trembling.”
What I just said, with slight variations, did not originate with me. It is an adaption of Paul’s first letter to the Cornthians. But his humility and confidence solely in bringing the Gospel to the church in Corinth are words everyone who stands here in the pulpit, 2000 years later, should remember.
A good sermon, in the 21st century, is based first on the Bible – be it Psalms, Old Testament, the Gospel or the letters. In 2020, we are blessed with resources that would astound preachers even thirty years ago – less time than many of us have been attending Bethany, let alone hearing sermons.
Where once Preachers were limited to the printed Biblical commentaries we may have owned or borrowed – we now have thousands of commentaries – entire libraries of history – available to us at the stroke of a key.
And this is all well and good. But it is not enough. If we – you and I – are to speak God’s words, we must call upon one more resource — the Holy Spirit.
To paraphrase Paul, whether or not we speak with plausible words of wisdom, it is the demonstration of the Spirit and of power which moves us, so that our faith might rest not on human wisdom but on the power of God.
Those of us who speak God’s wisdom, speak for eternity. The hero of my life is the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. As I say his name, all of you, I’m certain, are thinking of four words. “I have a dream.”
Earlier in that same decade, President John Kennedy spoke words that we still remember. You can say it with me, if you want: “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.”
This is my generation. Those of you who remember World War II or grew up in a post-9/11 age – may have your own quotes to remember.
But great quotes didn’t begin one hundred years ago. History is littered with them. Yet, except for the rare exception of a Shaekespeare or an Abraham Lincoln, those human quotes are lost.
Not so with God’s words, which live eternally. In fact, the oldest quote in history goes back over 3000 years and is one you already know – “In the Beginning.”
Jesus knew the word of God – what we Christians refer to as the Old Testament – which had been handed down to him, mostly through oral traditions, for centuries.
In regard to those writings, Jesus said, in Matthew 5, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished.”
This reading is from the New International Version – the translation I generally prefer. But for this particular passage, I enjoy the King James Version, which was written in the time of Shakespeare and reflects the language of the time in the 1500s. It reads, “For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.“
“…one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law…”
While we don’t see a lot of jots or tittles these days in our modern language, the phrase was extremely important in Jesus’ day.
Pharisees at the time were in charge of “keeping the books,” as it were. They were more concerned with “God’s laws,” as handed down from Creator God to Moses to ensure that the letter of the law was specifically followed. The Pharisees would intently watch the Scribes as they copied what had been written before, so that every Hebrew letter and note – every “jot and tittle” – would be followed exactly. Take a moment to imagine that. Let’s say you have a handwritten page from your favorite book – John Stteinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath, for example. You must exactly duplicate every mark that Steinbeck made – every “jot and tittle” – while a Pharisee was literally looming over your shoulder, surveying every mark you made. A little intimidating, to be sure. These writings ar what Jesus meant – that “nothing would be changed.”
Which is contrary to everything we have learned about Jesus – that he was sent to earth by his Heavenly Father so that we here may live by God’s will and not strictly by God’s word.
Yet, there it is.
Keep in mind that Jesus did not set out to create a new religion. To the contrary, he was a good, faithful Jew who obeyed the laws and saw his mission as taking the religion to the next step.
Jesus knew he was not going to accomplish this alone. We are challenged with the school-yard riddle that if God is all-powerful, can God create a rock too heavy for God to lift? I ask, if God is all powerful, then why doesn’t God just wave a heavenly wand and make us all what God wants us to be?
The answer to that is, of course, I have no idea. “Maybe something to do with free will,” to quote Time Bandits.
But I do know that Creator God had no intention of just making it so. Which is why God sent his son, Jesus, to us – to teach us God’s will.
Jesus gathered up his 12 disciples, to teach them, through example and stories, God’s will. And he spoke to the thousands, feeding their stomachs with loaves and fishes and their hearts and minds with God’s intentions. And those people taught others and a second, New, testament was written and churches were built to house the believers and 2000 years later, here we are – studying the word and trying to live the life Jesus taught us.
But it is not enough that we sit here politely in the pew, murmuring “amens” and joining Natalya in our beautiful music. Jesus tells us “You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way,” Jesus continues, “let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.”
Go out and share the good news of Jesus Christ – of a life of love and service. Live the will of God. Because “whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, will be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.”
And this, my friends, is the word – and the will – of God.