Skip to main content

Introduction to Worship for 2/5/2017

By

Letting the Light Through

Jesus tells us that we are salt and light as we seek to live as God’s people in the world. With the Spirit’s help, we offer our gifts and talents to extend the reach of God’s realm. With Isaiah and the psalmist, we learn what it means to practice righteousness and restore beauty in community as we live out the heart of our faith.

Matthew 5:13–20

This week, we continue to read from the collection of Jesus’ teachings known as the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus uses powerful images of salt and light as he describes what it means to live according to the ways of God’s realm. The same images of salt and light are used in the Hebrew Scriptures to describe covenant and law. David and his descendants are called a lamp before God. Jesus continues and expands the message found in the scriptures.

Jesus tells his followers that at this very moment they are salt – cleansing, preserving, adding flavour. At this moment they are light – revealing what is hidden, allowing all to see. God’s reign is not only a future promise; it also is present reality. We participate in that reign as we live in God’s ways. Our light should shine before others, not so that they can applaud our piety, but so that our works can direct others to give thanks and praise to God. God, through us, gives light to “all in the house.” The word translated here as house is the word for “the established world” – it is a big house!

Jesus is accused by the scribes and Pharisees of not keeping God’s law, but he is faithful to the law’s intent. Jesus comes not to abolish the law, but to fulfill it. Jesus calls followers to live righteous lives, showing justice and mercy to all. Jesus calls followers to go to the heart of God’s law, fulfilling the spirit of it. Those who break God’s law and teach others to do so are least in God’s realm; they are not banished from God’s reign, but need to change and be restored to a right relationship. The concern of the scribes and Pharisees was obedience to God’s law. Jesus’ followers must be just as whole-hearted in following the intent and spirit of the law.

Jesus calls us to lives of “righteousness,” the ethical actions expected of those who believe in and follow Jesus the Christ. John P. Meier states, “Matthew stresses that the disciples’ light, which is meant to be seen by all . . . can be smothered only by the disciples’ own failure . . . The disciples can cause the failure of their mission if they ignore others and live only for themselves” (John P. Meier, Matthew, Wilmington, DE: Michael Glazier, 1980).

Ministry is bringing Christ’s light into the world in the daily life of each Christian and in the corporate witness of the church. Where are the challenges in responding to the Sermon on the Mount?

Connecting scripture and life

Read “Wounded Healing.”

• What beauty are you seeking to have restored within yourself? 

Our scars and woundedness are important, because they have played a role in defining who we are/have become as individuals (and as church). Some scars are the result of things that just happen to us, and some are the result of choices we have made, both harmful choices, but also choices to stand in solidarity with others who may be suffering, and for which we paid a price.

It is fear – of differentness and “otherness,” of our own frailty, of the judgment of others – that most often keeps us from embracing our woundedness, and thus our wholeness. It is the work of the church to embrace a wholeness that includes our brokenness and woundedness… the crack that lets the light in.

• What is needed for us, as individuals and as the church to “grow into our fullest, most compassionate identity, our greatness of heart”?


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Introduction to Worship for 4/30/2017

By
Followers of the Way: Renowned Jesus scholar John Dominic Crossan made a profound statement about this week’s gospel reading. “Emmaus never happened,” Crossan wrote. “Emmaus always happens.” What we are invited to grapple with in that statement is the truth that the factual (historical) significance of the resurrection stories is secondary to a more profound truth: the risen Christ is with us. Now. Here. That is what the early church began to learn, and it is what enabled them to move on. Luke 24:13–35 The exact location of Emmaus is not known. Perhaps this uncertainty forms a commentary on the focus scripture. Emmaus may be anywhere. Hearts burning and eyes opening do not take place in only one place, either geographical or spiritual. Emmaus comes into sight wherever a path leads us toward communion with God and whenever we recognize the risen Christ among us. On the day of Jesus’ resurrection, two disciples walk along the road to Emmaus with Jesus, informing this “strange...
1 comment
Read more

Introduction to Worship for 2/26/2017

By
Matthew 17:1-9 And so the Season after the Epiphany closes: on a holy mountain where God may be found. It is a place of sacred mystery, where shining and shadow convey a holy presence. It is a place of community across time, where God’s people of past and present meet. It is a place of silence and witness, where visions are kept quiet and God says of Jesus, “Listen to him.” From here, we go forward into Lent: the 40 days and 6 Sundays that take us through Jesus’ progress toward Jerusalem and the conflict with the government of Palestine that would lead to his crucifixion. We will have special worship stations in the sanctuary, for reflection and prayer; a Tuesday morning prayer group; a book study on “Gifts of the Dark Wood,” a book that reflects on the hard places and what we find there; and in worship, we will tell the stories of Jesus and his encounters with people who were on the margins, that he brought into the center.  So this week, we pause to reflect on the insight tha...
Post a Comment
Read more

Introduction to Worship for 1/22/2017

By
Matthew 4:12-23 This week we are excited to have guest preacher Rick Ufford-Chase with us.  Rick is the co-director of Stony Point Center (with his wife Kitty) and is the PC(USA) Associate for Interfaith Relations, a former moderator of the denomination, and an activist and justice worker, as well as a friend of the congregation. Rick has recently curated and co-written a book called “Faithful Resistance: Gospel Visions in a Time of Empire”, which was the focus of our book study this fall at UPC. The title of his sermon is “Faithful Resistance: Not for the Faint of Heart”. So it’s fair to ask: what are we resisting, and why are we talking about it in church? We are resisting… the culture that is built on consumption and destruction; the vision of the world that puts white Christians at the center; our own tendencies to the call to love, the practices that lead us away from Jesus’ radical vision of God’s reign on earth, a “kingdom of love.” Rick will be with us the whole wee...
Post a Comment
Read more