Home Worship Guide for May 10

Preparation for Worship

For this morning’s worship, you will need two candles. In our tradition, we light two candles at the beginning of worship to represent the presence of Jesus. If you want to celebrate communion, have some food and drink to share. The type of food and drink does not matter for they are merely symbols which help us celebrate the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.

Invitation.  God invites us to become and be God’s people. Living into this reality can be fraught with peril, be it because of our own needs to trust, learn, and grow or from those who see us as an enemy. In all of this, God is faithfully loving and present.

 

The Worship of God

Light two candles in recognition of Christ’s presence. In our practice, one candle represents Jesus’ divinity and the other Jesus’ humanity.

Gathering for Worship

Passing the Peace
Say to one another, “May the Peace of Christ be with you.”
Respond by saying, “And also with you.”

Call to Worship
Come and know that God is good!
We come seeking God’s shelter.
Come and know God’s mercy.
We come seeking wholeness and God’s peace.
Come and abide in God’s steadfast love.
Receive us as we are, as we come to worship you, O God.

Opening Prayer. Merciful God, our hearts are troubled. We long for a world free of hate and destruction. We yearn to know your presence in our daily lives; as we awaken and sleep, as we play and work, as we eat and pray, in moments mundane and profound. Receive us, shelter us, and nurture us as your beloved people, for your purposes and to your glory. Amen.

Songs and Psalms of Praise and Prayer

Song of Praise
Know that God is Good

Know that God is good.
Know that God is good,
Know that God is good, God is good, God is good.

Halle, hallelujah!
Halle, hallelujah!
Halle, hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!

Know that God is good.
Know that God is good,
Know that God is good, God is good, God is good.

 

A Reading from the Psalms
Psalm 31:1-5, 15-16

I take refuge in you, Lord.
    Please never let me be put to shame.
        Rescue me by your righteousness!
² Listen closely to me!
    Deliver me quickly;
        be a rock that protects me;
        be a strong fortress that saves me!
³ You are definitely my rock and my fortress.
    Guide me and lead me for the sake of your good name!
⁴ Get me out of this net that’s been set for me
    because you are my protective fortress.
⁵ I entrust my spirit into your hands;
    you, Lord, God of faithfulness—
    you have saved me.

¹⁵ My future is in your hands.
    Don’t hand me over to my enemies,
    to all who are out to get me!
¹⁶ Shine your face on your servant;
    save me by your faithful love!

Prayers for Others. Pause after each line to give voice to prayers as prompted.
Merciful God, who shelters us and guides us,
we give you thanks for…
God who comforts,
receive those who are fearful and lonely…
God whose love is steadfast,
be refuge for the ill, the dying, and those who care about them…
God of righteousness,
we ask for your wisdom and ways of justice to prevail
in our community, this nation, your world…
God who seeks our trust,
grow us and guide us in your ways that are life-giving in your world…
Amen.

Song
Walk Humbly with Your God

Celebrating Communion

Communion.  (Bread and wine were common foods during Jesus’ day.  As we celebrate communion at home, use common food and drinks you have. The type of food and drink is not what matters, but it matters that you remember Christ as you share, eat, and drink.)

A Reading from the Gospels, Mark 14:22-24.  While [the disciples and Jesus] were eating, [Jesus] took a loaf of bread, and after blessing it he broke it, gave it to them, and said, “Take; this is my body.” Then he took a cup, and after giving thanks he gave it to them, and all of them drank from it. He said to them, “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many.”

Share what you have to eat. Before everyone eats, have someone say,
“This food represents the body of Christ. As we eat, we remember Jesus.”

Share what you have to drink. Before everyone drinks, have someone say,
“This drink represents the covenant Christ made with us that our sins will be forgiven. As we drink, we remember Jesus.”

Prayer of Thanksgiving. Dear God, thank you for your abounding compassionate love. Thank you for guiding and leading us through these difficult times. Thank you for always being with us. Amen.

Song.  End communion by singing a hymn. You may want to sing Amazing Grace.

Amazing grace how sweet the sound
that saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost, but now I am found,
was blind but now I see.

The Gospel Lesson for the 5th Sunday of Easter

Listen to the gospel lesson and/or read below.

A Reading from John 14:1-14

{Jesus said,] “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling-places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. And you know the way to the place where I am going.”

Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?’ Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.”

Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.” Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father?’ Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own; but the Father who dwells in me does his works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; but if you do not, then believe me because of the works themselves. Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father. I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it.”

Reflection “The Way, Figuratively” from Jeffrey

Listen to Jeffrey’s reflection and/or read below.

“Do not let your hearts be troubled.” These words of Jesus start our reading in the Gospel of John today. And yet it is often noted in this time of global pandemic that people are indeed troubled. Isolation is emotionally taxing. Fear is on the rise. Uncertainty is widespread. I hear people talking about a return to “normal” which I believe means living without fear of death and illness or the uncertainty of the availability of resources. When Jesus says “Let not your heart be troubled” I take that to mean that he wants us to find trust in God despite our immediate circumstances. Fear is real, and it is powerful, but it does not have the ability to keep God’s love away. No isolation from others can restrict God’s presence. Being without the normal substance of life does not lift the obligation to show love and offer hope.  What’s left? Belief in God’s salvation, God’s goodness, God’s mercy. Why? Because I believe in God regardless of my freedom or lack of it. We say somewhat haphazardly that faith in God is the most important thing. If it only seems real when we are at ease and in luxury then we have seriously misunderstood God’s role in our life.

Rather than troubled, perhaps in response to our limiting circumstances and our fear, we can let our hearts be turned to those whose “normal” life includes the daily fear of death, illness, loss, and hunger. While all of us are restricted temporarily, more than 40 million people in the US live in enough poverty that the fear and troubling we sense now is what they experience daily. If our crisis is a taste of their normal, then our hearts should be troubled on their behalf. If we as followers of Jesus and workers of God’s justice were not troubled by the poverty and oppression of those around us before, I pray that our own fear and troubling will move us into a deeper compassion and more urgent care for others. In the end, may this crisis make us more Christ-like in our response to others.

Now, let’s move our attention to Jesus’ statement in John 14:6 – “I am the way, the truth, and the life.”

We were lost in the woods. I mean, literally lost. It was the summer of 1981, I was 14 years old, and hiking at Philmont Scout Ranch in New Mexico with two adults and 6 other Boy Scouts. We had camped the night before near a wilderness canteen that had root beer in barrels, provisions for re-stocking for the next three days, and a young brown bear cub that raided any loose gear left on the ground at night. As we broke camp and left that morning for an 11-mile hike to our next camping spot, we were well fed and in high spirits. By mid-afternoon, we were scheduled to stop at a bivouac that had great rock climbing and rappelling options. A short time after a hasty lunch under a stand of Ponderosa pines, however, we knew we were lost. The trails signs were not right. The adults were peering over maps and scratching their heads. We went a couple of miles one way only to return to the same “lost” location an hour later. Two o’clock—still lost. Three o’clock—no closer to camp. Four o’clock and a scout ranger named Michael found us. When we didn’t show up for climbing and rappelling, the staff were sure we needed help. With our new guide who knew the trail well, we arrived in camp in time to make dinner although we missed the chance to climb and rappel. Eleven miles had become sixteen. We were tired and disappointed, but all safe and back on the right course. When Jesus says “I am the Way” here in John 14, I think of that summer afternoon in the mountains. We needed a guide because we didn’t know the way to camp.

Just like all the other “I am” statements in the Gospel of John, when Jesus says “I am the way, truth, and life,” these are figurative images. Michael the ranger literally put us on the right trail. Jesus does so figuratively but that doesn’t mean it is somehow less real. Aimlessly wandering day-by-day is not a good life plan. In the same way that a day’s journey without a good map will leave us feeling lost, trying to navigate life without direction and purpose seems fruitless. Being lost in the wilderness is fearful, stressful, and if it lasts too long, defeating. The same happens when we find ourselves lost in life. Jesus offers the hope of both being found and set on a meaningful journey in life when he says, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” He is giving us the opportunity to let his life guide us, God’s Way give us direction, a good and generous Spirit pluck up the courage in us to do God’s mischievous work of justice and hope. From the New Testament book of Acts we know that the first followers of Jesus were not called “Christian” for several years after the resurrection (Acts 11:26). They were known as followers of “The Way” (see Acts 9:2, 19:9, 22:4, and 24:14) which seemed to identify them directly with Jesus as well as a particularly identifiable manner of living. In the countless years since, things have not changed much. Even in our technologically advanced, digitally improved, globally connected world, Jesus himself is still a Way that has meaning and purpose and hope.

Despite these great images from John 14, I have to admit that it is not one of my favorite set of verses in the Gospel. Not because of what it says but because of how it has been used by people to make the dwelling place of God an exclusive gated community for themselves and people most like them. Some claim that what Jesus meant to say was “only one way, only one truth, and only those who are like me have life.” They seem to think that only a few people are in heaven—only Christians like them, by which they mean people who believe the same things. They seem to think that heaven is small and God’s role in judgement is to condemn and kickout. They reduce what it means to be a Christian to a list of tenets that one has to believe. If you don’t agree with any one of the nine basic fundamentals, (see the list at the end), then you are not on the way, you don’t believe the truth, you will not have life with God. That’s baloney. A few men manufactured these interpretations of the Bible to restrict the wideness of God’s mercy into a set of provable facts one has to believe to be a real Christian in their estimation. The Way of Jesus in John is, instead, an open call for everyone to join the human journey with God. Jesus gives us an image of heaven as a welcome place for many rather than for the few, and that God’s role in judgement is to show mercy and offer grace rather than tell people to turn and burn. For some, they have forgotten that John the baptizer described Jesus as one who had come to “take away the sin of the world” (John 1:29) and that Jesus recognized the global image (cosmic?) of the incarnation when he said famously that “God so loved the world…” (John 3:16). The human way to live like God, then, is to cast open the doors of life and heaven just as wide and show the same kind of mercy that God has offered. All women and men are created in God’s image (Genesis 1) – The whole earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it; the world and all who live in it (Psalm24)  – We have One God who is above all and through all and in all (Ephesians 4). This Way of Jesus, the truth and the life he gives, is not to be restricted to a few unless we become guilty of dismissing the wider arc of the biblical witness to God’s welcome and justice through forgiveness and grace.

In a similar way, John 14 has been used to mislead us about heaven. The old King James Version of John 14:2 reads, “In my Father’s house there are many mansions.” The word “mansions” here is a bad translation of the Greek. More contemporary translations use “many rooms” rather than “mansions” or the substitute in the more cumbersome “many dwelling places.” It may seem like a picky point, but the difference in “mansions” and “rooms” is important. By putting mansions in heaven we are left with the somewhat unfortunate image that heaven is like Provo, Utah or Bridgeport, CT, or Orlando, FL – three of the top ten places in the US with the highest concentration of “mansions” (defined as big houses over $1Million). In England in 1611, when the King James Version was being approved, perhaps they believed heaven was similar to life as a Baron or a Duke living in a big stone mansion with all our needs met daily but without a need to earn our keep. Wealth and privilege and ease are hereby elevated as the ultimate symbol of divine provision. If heaven is a place of mansions for all, then it becomes a short mis-step to associate wealth on earth as a replica of heaven with God. Or equally problematic, we might begin to think that if God provides a mansion in heaven then God surely blesses the wealthy on earth. Jesus taught otherwise. Our hearts turned toward God recognize the ungodliness of living at the expense of other people, lesser people, who spend their life doing our bidding so that we can have luxury. Taking more than we need so that earthly abundance becomes our comfort is to replace hope in God with trust in wealth. In short, if what we want the most is more money, greater ease, and servants to please, then we are not on Jesus’ way of serving and loving others, and our work for justice and solidarity with the poor will be derailed as we journey toward more stuff for ourselves.

Jesus did not say, nor mean, we have a mansion in glory. A better reading of John 14, and one that seems to me consistent with the Greek, is that Jesus says “in God’s home there is plenty of room.” Enough for me and for you—enough for us and for them—enough room for all. The abundance of God’s provision in heaven is an abundance of welcome instead of wealth. The glory of God is not architectural majesty. The fullness of God’s place, that place to which Jesus is going and we know the way, never runs out of space for us or others. To claim that we can define a set of limits on God’s home is blasphemy. In Jesus’ day, those of the “in-crowd” and the “out-crowd” were clearly defined. Religious Jews were in and Gentiles were out; the healthy were in and the lepers or lame or blind (especially the blind!) were out; the wealthy were in and the poor were a hard maybe. Perhaps Christians today can learn a lesson from all this speculation about God’s favorite people and the certainty of who is going to heaven and who is not. Put simply: it’s not our job, we don’t know, and claiming such knowledge is sinful. The hopeful word from Jesus here is that there’s plenty of room in God’s glory and so we are assured that we too have a place with God, and we are relieved of the burden of deciding who is in God’s grace and who is not. We have permission from Jesus to believe that God’s welcome for everyone is founded on God’s wisdom, fueled by God’s love, and assured by God’s mercy.

Questions for Reflection:

1. When your heart has been troubled who or what eases the burden and fear?
2. Is there a time you have been lost, either literally or figuratively? How did you find your way? Share your story with those around the table.
3. What image of heaven brings you comfort or peace?

 

Prayer of Thanksgiving. (Offer a prayer of thanksgiving to God.)

 

Affirmation and Blessing

Sending Out

May the blessings of the One who is the Way be with you in the days to come.
May God guide your feet wherever you go.
May the blessings of Jesus who is your Life be with you in the days to come.
May he lead you by the hand to those who are your sisters and brothers in need.
May the blessings of the Spirit of Truth be with you in the days to come.
May you journey with the Spirit to that way which is everlasting.

Closing Song.  In our tradition, we close worship by singing the first verse of Blest Be the Tie.  Mindy starts us each week, and so she does today as well.

Blest be the tie that binds our hearts in Christian love.
The fellowship of kindred minds is like to that above. Amen.

______________ 

Credits: The Call to Worship and Opening Prayer is from Seasons of the Spirit™ SeasonsFUSION Lent • Easter 2020, Copyright © Wood Lake Publishing Inc. 2019. Used by permission. Words and music for Know that God is Good are unknown. It is a traditional refrain from the Congo and accompanied by Kendall on the steel pan & djembe. Psalm 31 is from the Common English Bible and read by Mike, Tyler, Laura, and Sarah. Walk Humbly With Your God was arranged by Robert J. Powell. The organ is played by Tracy and singers are Laura, Ally, Kendall, Sarah, Elizabeth, Tonya, Wyatt, and Justin. Mindy mixed all the single voices together to make a choir. Amazing Grace was written by John Newton and played by Aidan on the piano. The gospel was written by John and read by Addi, Anna, and Emily.  Blest be the Tie was written by John Fawcett (1782) and sung by Mindy. The Sending Out was written by Thom Shuman and used by permission.  Permission to podcast / stream the music in this service obtained from ONE LICENSE with license #A-724755. All rights reserved.

Appendix:  Here’s one list of the Nine “Fundamentals” as interpreted in the early 20^th century in the United States. I disagree theologically with at least 6 of these!  –Jeffrey

• Inerrancy of the Bible
• Literal seven-day (24-hour day) creation
• Virgin birth of Jesus
• Trinity as Father, Son, Holy Spirit
• Miracles of Jesus were all real
• Original sin and human depravity
• Substitutionary atonement theory
• Literal bodily resurrection of Jesus
• Future second coming of Jesus