At Home Worship
First Presbyterian Churches of
Paris and Deport, Texas
GREETINGS
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God,
2 Cor. 13:13
and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you
all.
And also
with you.
Trusting in the word of life given in baptism, we
are gathered in the name of the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
Amen
OPENING
SENTENCES
Through our baptism, we are dead to sin. Rom. 6:3, 11
Now we are alive to God in Christ Jesus.
CALL TO
WORSHIP
Come, nations of the earth, to bow before God.
Distant galaxies proclaim the Creator of all things.
We are humbled by the wonders of creation.
We are amazed by God’s mighty works.
This infinite God cares for each one of us.
God hears our cries and respond to our needs.
In our days of trouble, we call on our God.
We are confident that God listens and answers.
Let us also call on God with our prayers of thanks.
Let us celebrate the wondrous thing God provides.
God cares for us, even when others reject us.
We gather to glorify God’s name.
LET US PRAY(in
unison)
Holy God, come to us in distress. We are weary of conflict and long for your healing waters of forgiveness and renewal. You have sent us a teacher to draw us into discipleship, and we have found fulfillment when we are faithful to Christ’s call. We long to find peace, as we serve, but more often we encounter a sword. Our disagreements are many, and our capacity to forgive is strained. Send your light that we night not falter in our caring and in the proclamation of your good news. Amen
God’s grace
has been poured out among us that we might die to sin. Yet, we are persistent
in our disobedience, as if we thereby give to God more opportunities to be
gracious. Let us bring to God all the brokenness of our lives, our alienation
from our Creator, from persons we are called to love, and even from our own best
selves.
PRAYER OF
CONFESSION
God we are poor and needy in
matters of the spirit. You have offered us newness of life, but we are fearful
of the cost. Your gifts place us in debts so vast that we can never repay. We
are not worthy of your love and cannot earn your forgiveness. How is that when
we accept your grace we sense a freedom we have never before enjoyed. O God, we
want to be dead to sin and alive. Help us!
Amen
ASSURANCE OF
FORGIVENESS
As Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of God, we are lifted up to walk in newness of life, accepted and forgiven. You can never be your old self again, for Christ has set you free. Old divisions and misunderstandings are overcome in the steadfast love of God. All who give up their self-occupied ways for Christ’s sake find abundant life. This is God’s gift to you today.
Let Us Pray
Seek the LORD while he may be found; call on him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the evil man his thoughts. Let him turn to the LORD, and he will have mercy on him, and to our God, for he will freely pardon. “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the LORD.
Amen
GLORIA PATRI
Glory to the
Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit: as it was in the beginning, is
now, and will be forever. Amen. Amen. Amen.
PRAYER OF
ILLUMINATION
Let us pray:
Shepherd of the flock, whose compassion reaches out to all who are harassed and helpless, teach us and empower us to proclaim the good news of your dominion, that the healing may be offered, new life received, and demons overcome. May your love tend us day by day, transforming us in the image of Christ.
Amen.
LISTEN FOR
THE WORD OF THE LORD
THE PSALMIST PSALM
86: 1-10, 16-17
Incline your ear, O LORD, and answer me, for I am poor and needy.
Preserve my life, for I am devoted to you; save your servant who trusts in you. You are my God;
be gracious to me, O Lord, for to you do I cry all day long.
Gladden the soul of your servant, for to you, O Lord, I lift up my soul.
For you, O Lord, are good and forgiving, abounding in steadfast love to all who call on you.
Give ear, O LORD, to my prayer; listen to my cry of supplication.
In the day of my trouble I call on you, for you will answer me.
There is none like you among the gods, O Lord, nor are there any works like yours.
All the nations you have made shall come and bow down before you, O Lord, and shall glorify your name.
For you are great and do wondrous things; you alone are God.
Turn to me and be gracious to me; give your strength to your servant; save the child of your serving girl.
Show me a sign of your favor, so that those who hate me may see it and be put to shame, because you, LORD, have helped me and comforted me.
OLD TESTAMENT READING GENESIS 21: 8-21
THE EPISTLE READING ROMANS 6: 1b-11
A
sermon on Father’s Day based on Genesis 21: 8-21 Jane
Els
When I first read this scripture in
Genesis I thought to myself, “Wow, could they have picked a worse passage for
Father’s Day?” It sounded to me like Abraham wasn’t going to win any
Father of the Year prizes for the way he treated either his first-born son or
the kid’s mother, Hagar. But, the more I dug into the story the more
complicated the story got. Because now you have to add Juneteenth and slavery
to the mix this year. So we have a lot to talk about today. Pull up
a chair.
When I started feeling bad about Sarah
sending Hagar away, it turned out that Hagar had already run away once
before. In Genesis 16 we are introduced to Hagar as Sarah’s slave.
When it becomes obvious that Sarah is not going to be able to provide Abraham
with a son Sarah has no problem with “giving” her slave to her husband to
provide a child. So Hagar ran away. But God sent an angel to Hagar
to convince her to return to Sarah and submit to her.
It finally hit me – after my first cup
of coffee while watching the morning news on Juneteenth-- that the Creator of
the Universe seemed to be totally cool with slavery. And not just any kind of
slavery—no! The kind that apparently includes rape and then stealing the child
of that rape as your own child. Because, folks, in today’s genteel terms
that’s exactly how we would look at it today. That struck me as a bit odd for
God to create a world set up with such out of balance values from the beginning
of recorded history.
Some of this you say was the “social
norm”. And my bible commentary even ignores the scenario I just laid out
and instead tells us that this was the first time God, through the angel, had
spoken directly to a woman, like this was some big honor, like Abraham had ever
asked her what she thought of the whole situation ahead of time, like she had
any input into the whole plan.
Now we get to the scripture today and
they are throwing a big party for Abraham’s second son, his “real” son, the one
Sarah was finally able to conceive. And Sarah catches Hagar’s son Ishmael
“playing” with her son Isaac.
To start with there is some question
exactly what the translation of the word “playing” in the very first verse
means. There may have been something more sinister between the lines when
we read that Hagar’s son Ishmael was “playing” with Sarah’s son Isaac.
“Playing” could mean anything from teasing to torture or even sexual predation
but the point is made that Sarah may have been wise to separate the two little
boys. So, maybe we’re going to have to cut Sarah some slack. Maybe she
did have good reason to put some distance between Hagar and the
homestead. And maybe it didn’t have anything to do with jealousy or
inheritance.
And throughout it all God is in the
background like a nervous uncle promising everybody lots of land and
descendants and good reputations.
So, after we investigate a bit we find
that families in the bible are really just like families today—very
complicated. If we think we have problems on Father’s Day we can rest
assured that Abraham feels our pain.
My daughter used to be a Day Care
Director. About once a year she would call me up and without any
explanation tell me “Thank you for being such a great mom.” We both knew it
wasn’t so much that I was so great but in her work in Day Care she saw a side
of people that was not always the best. Because she saw them early in the
morning and when they were in a hurry or when they were tired or having to
write a check when they didn’t have the money or when their kid was sick or
when they were sick. Families are just complicated.
I have a quiet suspicion that there are
families who are secretly relieved this year that they have an excuse to cancel
Fathers Day and blame it on the quarantine. And I’m not pointing a finger
at anyone because I have no idea where I would point it—I just know that
families get complicated. Even the ones in the bible had drama. Why
should we think we are any better than they are? And maybe this is a good year
to have a “Time Out.”
Jesus didn’t come into the world because
we are perfect. Jesus came into the world because we’re not perfect and
needed someone to love us anyway.
Let
us pray.
Creator
God,
We are not perfect people and ask you to
help us. We pray for fathers today. We remember the good fathers that we
have had who are no longer with us and we know what a blessing we had to have
had them and we give you thanks for them. We pray for fathers that struggle to
be better and hope that you will guide them. In Christ’s name we pray, Amen.
THE EPISTLE READING ROMANS 6: 1b-11
THE EPISTLE READING ROMANS 6: 1b-11
Should we continue in sin in order that grace may abound?
By no means! How can we who died to sin go on living in it?
Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?
Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in the newness of life.
For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.
We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin.
For whoever has died is freed from sin.
But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him.
We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him.
The death he died, he died to sin, once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.
So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
“So have no fear of them; for nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered, and nothing secret that will not become known.
What I say to you in the dark, tell in the light; and what you hear whispered, proclaim from the housetops.
Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.
Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father.
And even the hairs of your head are all counted.
So do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows.
“Everyone therefore who acknowledges me before others, I also will acknowledge before my Father in heaven;
but whoever denies me before others, I also will deny before my Father in heaven.
“Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.
For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law;
and one’s foes will be members of one’s own household.
Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me;
and whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me.
Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.
The Gospel of the Lord. Praise to you, O Christ.
SERMON
Bad News/Good News Send-Off Armel Crocker
In our passage for today Jesus sends the twelve out into the mission field where he warns them they will face opposition and even violence. He expects them, despite opposition, to get the job done. Matthew shapes this discourse to speak to the early missionaries from his Jewish-Gentile congregation who go into the world and meet with abuse and rejection as they spread the message that the kingdom of heaven has come near in Jesus. Jesus' message in 10:24-39 is a bad news/good news send-off speech. The bad news is that they will face opposition and violence. The good news is that God will give them the words to speak.
Jesus
strictly instructs them to travel light. No gold, silver, or copper. No bag.
Just one tunic, no extra sandals, no staff. Then Jesus launches into a lengthy
advice session for the journey, nuggets of advice he most definitely wants to
be on our packing list. His send-off speech takes the form of a series of
proverbial observations about life, alternating with admonitions based on those
observations. This passage reminds me of the rabbinic form of teaching or
preaching called the "string of beads," a series of brief proverbial
observations and admonitions strung together along the thread of a single
theme. They all seem to have to do with what the disciples are to know and
remember to get the job done. The thread will become clearer as we explore the
beads strung upon it.
By
definition, a proverb—a short sentence of ethical guidance—is anonymous. When
we come upon a saying that is proverbial in form but whose author we know, it
is called an aphorism. So technically speaking, the brief sayings in these
verses are aphorisms of Jesus. In some of them Jesus seems to be echoing common
wisdom about life. In others, he is making a statement about the consequences
of accepting or rejecting him for our futures.
Here are
several aphorisms Jesus utters in his send-off speech. He seems to be saying
that remembering these truths and acting accordingly is how the disciples can
face into opposition and get the job done.
"A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a slave above his
master".
"Nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered, and
nothing secret that will not become known".
"Even the hairs on your head are counted".
"Everyone who acknowledges me before others I will
acknowledge before my Father in heaven, but whoever denies me before others, I
also will deny before my Father in heaven".
"I have come not to bring peace, but a sword".
"Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of
me".
"Those who find their life will lose it and those who lose
their life for my sake will find it”.
Proverbs,
indicative statements of the way things are, imply admonitions—directions on
how we should live in light of the reality they express.
Our passage
is a series of alternating proverbial observations about daily life and
admonitions. They are strung on a thematic thread. Jesus wants the disciples to
wear this string of beads around their necks as they go out into hostile
environments. Matthew wanted the Christian missionaries to wear this string of
beads as they went out from the church community into the world.
A disciple is not above the
teacher, nor a slave above the master. So, the response to this truth is that the disciples, the early
missionaries, and we 21st-century disciples should prepare ourselves
to face opposition as Jesus did.
Nothing is covered up that will not
be uncovered and nothing secret that will not become known. So as a result of this fact, we are to remember
that evildoers' words and deeds will be revealed and judged in due time. And we
are to be emboldened to speak God's good news boldly and without fear.
Even the hairs of your head are
counted. Since God
values us so highly, we can be assured God will vindicate us in the last days.
Everyone who acknowledges me before
others I will acknowledge before my Father in heaven, but whoever denies me
before others, I also will deny before my Father in heaven. In light of this reality, we should choose to
acknowledge Jesus and his kingdom now in all we say and do. And we should
encourage others to do so as well in light of these high stakes.
Whoever loves father or mother more
than me is not worthy of me. Given this truth Jesus speaks, we should love him above all and
give him our highest loyalty.
Whoever does not take up the cross
and follow me is not worthy of me. We should not shrink from inconvenience or sacrifice in service of
God's kingdom.
Those who find their life will lose
it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. We should give up our definition of the good
life with the goal of personal success to find our true identity and purpose in
Christ's service.
How would
we describe the string or thread that holds these beads together? I think it's
fearless confession of faith in Jesus in the world that, while risky, is well
worth the sacrifice because it leads to the discovery of our true identity and
purpose as individuals and as a church.
That's a
reminder we will want to carry along with us as we meet difficult tests of our
faith in our daily lives in the world.
Amen.
APOSTLES’ CREED
I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth. And in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord; who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried; he descended into hell; the third day he rose again from the dead; he ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead. I believe in the Holy Ghost; the holy Catholic Church; the communion of saints; the forgiveness of sins; the resurrection of the body; and the life everlasting. Amen.
PRAYERS OF INTERCESSION
Friends in Christ,
God invites us to hold the needs of our sisters and brothers as dear to us as our own needs. Loving our neighbors as ourselves, we offer our thanksgivings and our petitions on behalf of the church and the world. Hear our prayers, God of power, and through the ministry of your Son free us from the grip of the tomb, that we may desire you as the fullness of life and proclaim your saving deeds to all the world.
We ask this through Christ our Lord who taught us to pray;
Our Father, who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name; Thy kingdom come: Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread; And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the Kingdom and the Power and the Glory forever.
Amen.
CHARGE AND BLESSINGS
Beloved people of God Phil. 4:8–9
whatever is true, whatever is honorable,
whatever is just, whatever is pure,
whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable,
anything that is excellent and worthy of praise—
keep on doing these things,
and the God of peace will be with you.
Alleluia! Amen.
