Vulnerable Leadership
Children's sermon
Illustration
Preaching
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Note: This installment is still being edited and appended, but for purposes of immediacy we are posting it for your use. Please excuse any errors or omissions. We’ll have it cleaned up soon.
For October 21, 2018:
Vulnerable Leadership
by Bethany Peerbolte
Hebrews 5:1-10; Mark 10:35-45
In the Scripture
In this section of the letter to the Hebrews the author seeks to connect Jesus to the office of the high priest. To do that characteristics are given of a high priest and then shown how Jesus not only has those characteristics but displays them in a way that proves he is the messiah. One of these characteristics is that a high priest must have sympathy for the sins of the people. Verse two says “he is able to deal gently with the ignorant and wayward, since he himself is subject to weakness.” This turns into a presentation of why it imperative for Jesus to be human, to make him subject to the weakness all humans face.
This book relies heavily on Jewish traditions. When this author references sin they are very careful to signify what kind of sin they are actually talking about. In his commentary on this letter William Barclay points out that throughout the Old Testament sins of ignorance are forgivable but sins of impudence are not. The writer of this letter makes it clear the sin this high priest empathizes with are sins of ignorance. These sins include lack of knowledge but also extended to times when a person sinned in a fit of anger or passion or sinned because they were overcome by a powerful temptation. Sins of ignorance were repented for in tears and true confession. The sins that were not covered in the category of sins of ignorance were cold, deliberate actions that the person did not feel remorse for afterward.
When someone felt true remorse and sought out the high priest to make a sacrifice for them, then the high priest would be merciful. The high priest would see in the repentant a piece of themselves. Since the priest had also been subject to the temptations of the world and the flesh the priest would understand and gently guide the sinner back to a right relationship with God.
What makes Jesus even more remarkable is that Jesus was merciful even though he never had to repent. Jesus was able to understand the plight of a sinner without having to fall into the hole with them. Jesus perfectly exhibits this trait of a high priest.
In Mark’s gospel James and John start a conversation that could bring down the whole circle of apostles. They begin to ask who will sit next to Jesus after his final triumph. They do not doubt the victory is coming and assume Jesus’ throne room will be like all the others. The most powerful and important people to Jesus will sit on his right and left. As siblings James and John have most likely been arguing since birth about who is better than the other. This rivalry spills over into Jesus’ lap and his answer is that they must be willing to go through the trials he is about to go through. The word translated here as “baptized” is closer to the English word “submerged.” Jesus asks them if they are willing to be submerged in everything by which Jesus is surrounded. At the time of the question that means persecution and discomfort but when they answer they blindly agree to pain, suffering, and death.
The reality check from Jesus does not end the problem this rivalry has stirred up though. The other ten are angry that James and John assumed they were the obvious choices for Jesus’s right and left hands. It is time for Jesus to show them exactly how the standards of leadership are different in his kingdom.
Worldly leadership requires the collection of workers who will do ones’ will. The leader’s goal should be to exert minimal effort while getting more and more done. One seeks to advance up the roles, working hard now so they do not have to later. In the kingdom of God that is reversed. The leader seeks to work the hardest for those put in their care, collecting service to others instead of collecting servants.
These verses from Hebrews and Mark present a new kind of leader. In a world where leaders are meant to be flawless, Jesus shows that the strongest leaders recognize their weakness. In a world where leaders strive to do little, Jesus shows that the best leaders will give all they can to serve others. In other words, leaders should be vulnerable. They should be open about their flaws so that others feel comfortable seeking them out for help. Leaders should not shy away from the dirty work but instead embrace it and do it themselves. Vulnerability was not easy for humanity then and it hasn’t gotten any easier today.
In the News
When Oliver Cromwell, English military leader, had his portrait done the painter thought it would be kind to leave off the many warts that spotted Cromwell’s face. Cromwell’s response was to insist he be painted warts and all. The best leaders are the ones who do not see their flaws as something to hide, but recognize their unique experiences add to the strength of their leadership.
Brene Brown does a wonderful job describing the struggle humanity has with vulnerability. Her research into human connection lead her to face the enemy of connection, shame. Brown noticed the people who overcame their shame to achieve connection were also the people who lived whole-heartedly. One of the key characteristics of a whole-hearted person is vulnerability. People who did not let shame rule their lives were people who took the risk to say “I love you” first and saw their flaws as strength. In Brown’s Ted Talk she describes her struggle to become more vulnerable herself, and challenges parents, believers, politicians, and corporations to be vulnerable.
In corporations, vulnerability is not just for those at the bottom of the system. Leaders should also embrace this need for openness and honesty. Brown’s research has inspired Forbes, Harvard Business Review, and Strategy Business to look at how vulnerable leaders impact a work place. Their conclusions all speak to the same observations. For their workforce, vulnerable leaders increase productivity. They allow space for failure without catastrophic repercussions which allow the team to play around with new ideas. Hopefully they allow coming across the next big breakthrough. When a team has a leader who values vulnerability the connection between team members is stronger. True friendships and caring take place. The benefits aren’t just for the employees though. Leaders who are vulnerable show lowered stress levels. Vulnerability allows them to reach out for help when they need it and reject the myth that great people achieve greatness on their own. When leaders admit to their own shortcomings they show themselves the love they need to heal and get that same love back from those to which they open up.
One group that is helping people become more vulnerable is Failure Lab. This group of professionals seek to “eliminate the fear of failure and encourage intelligent risk taking.” At their events people tell the audience about a failure they have experienced. The speaker simply tells the facts, no interpretation, no “this is what I learned” discussion, they only tell the facts of the failure. Speakers are encouraged to embrace their part in the failure and advised not to blame others or try to offset the true weight of their failure. Then the speaker leaves and the audience is given time to reflect on the story they heard. The range of lessons is compounded as each person tells their gained wisdom. Failure Lab is designed to be a safe space to air personal and professional shortcomings and allow the community to deepen connections through the individual’s vulnerability.
Vulnerability is not just about admitting one’s mistakes. It is also opening oneself up to rejection and persecution. It is often being willing to step between someone else and the accuser. Everyday women must walk through lines of protesters to receive healthcare. Vicki Bloom walks that same path to work. Bloom is a doula, which normally means she provides emotional and spiritual support to women during childbirth. However, she also serves as an “abortion doula” and has helped over two thousand women through their abortions. “Witnessing is a big part of what doulas do” says Bloom. It is not about solving problems or making anything better, it’s about being present. Present through the joy and through the pain. Vulnerable people can gently handle life’s messy decisions and unbearable moments with others.
When Fortune ranked the top fifty leaders of 2018 they put the “march for our lives” student leaders and the leaders of “#metoo” in the number one and number three spots. These movements would not exist without vulnerability. Every leader in these movements have had to look at themselves and decide vulnerability is more important than reputation. There are plenty of examples of people who do not show vulnerable leadership. Turn on any news channel for 10 minutes and make a list. Jesus is calling, yelling, for us to embrace vulnerable leadership instead of what we see on the news.
In the Sermon
A preacher may have to dig into personal experience to find a shining example of vulnerable leadership, like someone who volunteered for the hardest jobs on a mission trip worksite. Perhaps it is a teacher who went above and beyond to make sure every student got a quality education, or a friend who opened up about their own experience to make another’s experience seem less shameful. In fact, to offer a personal story for this sermon may be just the example needed to make it come to life. This could be the chance to talk about a failure and set the tone that even pastors are flawed.
It seems our world is begging for authentic vulnerability, when someone is accused or a corporation makes a mistake I often hear people dreaming of a real apology. Brene Brown even says we want to hear “I’m sorry, and I’ll fix it.” In September Tiger Woods won his first tournament since 2013. The headlines were focused on his win and steered clear of his past scandals -- possibly because he was vulnerable in the aftermath. He sought help, acted fairly toward his wife, and admitted his flaws. He lived out “I’m sorry, I’ll fix it.”
We all have something or someone we would say those words to. God’s grace is that when we say those words we aren’t counted out. In God’s kingdom, when we say those words we are given even more responsibility. We are asked to serve others, to help them say “I’m sorry. I’ll fix it.” We are led by a high priest who didn’t have to say those words but still did. Jesus fixed our broken relationship with God. Jesus lives a life subject to the weakness of sin and could know our struggle. Jesus did not use his authority to force us to pay for the mistakes we made, but bent down to serve those who needed a piece of his power.
SECOND THOUGHTS
Surviving the Storm
by Chris Keating
Job 38 and Psalm 104
Editor's note: Relating to the release of a new, ever urgent climate report last week, check out Chris's excellent and important work Charged with Grandeur: Sermons and Practices for Delighting in God's Creation (CSS Publishing).
It’s not hard to miss the sad irony of Hurricane Michael slamming the United States the same week a United Nations panel issued a dire assessment of global warming.
Last week, Michael’s brutality pummeled a path across the south, in many cases drenching areas still soggy from Hurricane Florence just weeks ago. In Florida, the hurricane pressed against the walls of the Lynn Haven police station where 40 people sought shelter, bringing a Job-like affliction of tragedy. For nearly an hour, Lynn Haven Mayor Margo Anderson wondered if the storm would claim her life.
Inside the police station debris fell as the storm’s eye blew around them. “I looked over at my husband and I took his hand and I said we're not going to make it,” said Anderson. “We are not going to make it.”
But then the silence fell. As the storm subsided, Anderson and the others who had sought shelter crawled out of the debris, like Job rising at the invitation of God to ponder the calamity which had befallen. From Florida to Virginia, Michael’s force turned deadly, adding to the misery of many who were still recovering from Hurricane Florence just weeks earlier.
Nearby in Mexico Beach nearly the entire town was leveled, turning the small town of about 1,000 into an apocalyptic wasteland. Mexico Beach faced the storm’s fiercest blows, enduring 155 mph winds that leveled entire neighborhoods and toppled power lines. Strangely, as the storm moved inland it picked up force, pummeling soggy areas in the Carolinas before heading through Virginia.
It was a storm of near-biblical proportions.
It’s becoming a familiar story. Scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released data in September showing a correlation between climate change and increases in major hurricane frequency, and predicted a continued increase in storm intensity. Devastating storms will become routine.
But Michael’s arrival in the United States also coincided with the release of a new climate study released by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The IPCC, a consortium of scientists convened by the United Nations, issued a report analyzing more than 6,000 studies.
The IPCC’s dire conclusions described a world ablaze in wildfires and beset by food shortages. They warned this isn’t some far off dystopian future. Instead, it’s a hard to miss cataclysm which will impact nearly every nation. Most adults and children alive today will experience the consequences of climate change directly, unless immediate action is taken.
There’s a lot at stake. Based on current trends, the world will warm more than 1.5 degrees Celsius by 2040. Writer David Wallace-Wells notes that will likely bring a sweep of suffering the world has never experienced:
Hundreds of millions of lives are at stake, the report declares…Nearly all coral reefs would die out, wildfires and heat waves would sweep across the planet annually, and the interplay between drought and flooding and temperature would mean that the world’s food supply would become dramatically less secure.
The worst news is that it may be too late. Wallace-Wells continues: Avoiding that scale of suffering, the report says, requires such a thorough transformation of the world’s economy, agriculture, and culture that “there is no documented historical precedent.”
These are not hair-brained conclusions from conspiracy theorists; these are the findings of the world’s most prominent scientists. The IPCC’s report found that “Climate-related risks to health, livelihoods, food security, water supply, human security, and economic growth are projected to increase with global warming of 1.5°C and increase further with 2°C.”
It’s a call to greater humility in our relationship to creation, and invitation to a more hopeful future.
Job might resonate with that invitation. Like survivors of terrifying storms -- as well as wildfires, floods, and other calamities -- Job climbs out of the storm in search of hope. Translations vary, but the NIV rendering of chapter 29, verse 1 seems particularly direct. Job reflects on his misery. His plaintive cry emerges: “How I long for the months gone by, for the days when God watched over me, when God’s lamp shone upon my head.”
God’s response to Job in chapter 37 is about as comforting as reports of global climate change. Indeed, Yahweh seems particularly dismissive of Job’s experience. These hardly seem like the words of one slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love:
“Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind: "Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? Gird up your loins like a man, I will question you, and you shall declare to me. Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements -- surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it?
Whoa, God! What about a little empathy? These are not the words anyone should say to the victims of tragedy.
Yet they may also be words of invitation. God points to the astonishing beauty of the cosmos, demanding Job to reconsider his vocation. Follow the speech, this guided tour of the universe continues and note the similarities of the IPCC’s ominous warnings regarding the climate.
It’s a theme worth considering today. “Who has put wisdom in the inward parts, or given understanding to the mind?” Job is invited to recall that God is God, and that Job is not.
Suddenly, a new possibility emerges. Not only has Job imagined that he is the center of the universe, he has assumed that the world is a safe place. Yet, as God’s tour reminds Job, the world is both beautiful and wild, and not at all safe. God invites Job to consider his place in creation.
As Kathryn M. Schifferdecker notes, such an invitation may not seem to fit the conventional image of comfort. But it is a profoundly stunning invitation, says Schifferdecker, which calls humans to “live freely in a world full of heartbreaking suffering and heart-stopping beauty.”
There’s an echo of this in Psalm 104. Overcome with praise, the psalmist elicits a hopeful response to what often feels like the overwhelming data of despair. The psalmist understands the beauty and fragility of creation, an element many have forgotten in the contemporary world. In a world that is beautiful and wild, tamed and terrible, God’s people are called to recall “In wisdom, you have made them all.”
ILLUSTRATIONS
From team member Mary Austin:
Mark 10:35-45
Competition
James and John are longing to be first -- they have placed themselves in competition with the other disciples. Jesus reminds them of the power of not being in competition, a lesson one young swimmer learned from her coach. As she tells it, she had finished a race with a time that was worse than she expected, and had some time to wait before her next event. “I began to dwell on what I had to do. I knew that I would be really disappointed if I didn’t break a minute on my last chance. As most athletes know, when you have time to sit and think about what you need to do, you start to get nervous. That is exactly what I was beginning to do; only it wasn’t the good kind of nerves that get you psyched up -- it was the bad kind that made you want to sit in a corner and hide.” She got her coach’s attention, and asked for a pep talk. Instead, he told a story.
She said the speech was better than she could have imagined:
“I’m going to tell you a story, Lauren,” he began, “about dogs. I was watching those little toy-dog competitions on TV the other day. You know, the ones where those little yuppers run through the hoops and up and down the teeter-totter and all that? Aren’t those things just the greatest? Well there was this one dog that was just a thrill to see. He was running through that course like none other, just zipping past everything. Of course, his owner was this silly old lady with a big, flowery dress and a floppy hat. It was just a sight to be seen, that little dog and that woman. Now, this was an exciting dog to watch because he was going so fast, he leaped onto the platform at the end of the race, and the crowed was ecstatic because the dog had not only just won the event, but he just broke a record! He jumped into his owner’s arms and was so happy like little dogs are when they’re doing those things.”
“Then the crowed went quiet. They looked at the course and noticed that one of the poles that the dog had to run through was knocked down. That adds an extra few seconds onto his final score. To make it worse, it wasn’t even the dog’s fault that it was knocked down. The woman bumped into it when she was guiding her dog through the course with her big floppy hat! Because of this, the dog lost. The look on the woman’s face was of obvious pain. She felt so guilty that she ruined this incredible moment for her dog. But it was kind of interesting, watching that woman and her dog together. She looked so sad, but the dog was the same. Then it occurred to me that the dog didn’t care whether he won or lost. Honestly, he probably didn’t even know he was in a competition. All he knew was that he was having a good time running around through some hoops and it was a good day for him. He was doing what he loved and that was all that mattered.”
“So Lauren,” the coach continued, “when you’re swimming out there, remember that you’re here because you love to swim and nothing more. You didn’t spend all those hours practicing because you hate the water or because you want to be an amazing swimmer -- you’re there because you love it.”
So she did. She says, “I remember thinking to myself during that important race to go my hardest because I’m out there doing what I loved. It doesn’t matter how it ends up, but just remember to enjoy the moment because it’s the last I’ll have of it for a while. Oh yeah -- that was the day that I finally broke a minute in the 100 Freestyle.”
Maybe we’re not here to be first or last, just because we love Jesus and want to be with him.
* * *
Mark 10:35-45
Being Vulnerable
As Bethany Peerbolte talks about in her article, the ability to be vulnerable is a valuable skill. Author Mike Robbins talks about concrete ways to do this at work. One of his tips is to harness the power of appreciation. “Showing appreciation is fundamental to building strong relationships, keeping negative things in perspective, and empowering teams. However, it is different from offering recognition. We often think of these things as the same, especially in professional settings; but recognition is based on results or performance -- what people do or produce -- while appreciation is about people’s inherent value or who they are.” He adds, “Of course, we want to do what we can to effectively recognize successful outcomes like sales results, projects completed, or ideas implemented. But behind every success or failure is a living, breathing human being. Appreciation is about focusing on our gratitude for people’s effort, as well as the human qualities and characteristics they possess that we value -- such as humility, kindness, or humor -- regardless of the outcomes. It is something we can express at any time.” Showing appreciation allows our deeper selves to connect with the deep gifts in other people.
Jesus is forming the disciples into a team, to put it into today’s language. He’s building skills in them that will survive his death. Mike Robbins says that, “the most significant element of team success is what’s known as psychological safety: a culture of trust where people feel safe to speak up, take risks, and know that they won’t be ridiculed for making mistakes or dissenting. When these actions -- speaking up, taking risks, and owning mistakes -- are modeled and celebrated, especially by those in leadership positions, it allows the team and the environment to be as psychologically safe as possible.”
These are risky moves, relying on the vulnerability of the leader. They are ways to serve, on the part of the leader, instead of being served.
* * *
Psalm 104:1-9, 24, 35c
We need nature
Standing in awe of creation, the psalmist writes, “O LORD, how manifold are your works! In wisdom you have made them all; the earth is full of your creatures.” It turns out that we are made to crave a connection with the natural world, created by our God. Author Janmarie Connor says that the natural world, the world of the psalmist, “induces the mind to settle, to generate space, and to begin harmonizing with its own pure and subtle vibration. Breathing regulates, heart rhythm stabilizes, blood pressure is reduced, feelings of acceptance, forgiveness, and well-being blossom. In an instant, you have traveled the distance from the head to the heart.”
This is so important the people are now talking about “Eco literacy,” expanding the idea of emotional intelligence to the natural world. This being taught to children, who have a head start on the awe factor. “For students in a first-grade class at Park Day School in Oakland, California, the most in-depth project of their young academic careers involved several months spent transforming their classroom into an ocean habitat, ripe with coral, jellyfish, leopard sharks, octopi, and deep-sea divers (or, at least, paper facsimiles of them). Their work culminated in one special night when, suited with goggles and homemade air tanks, the boys and girls shared what they had learned with their parents. It was such a successful end to their project that several children had to be gently dragged away as bedtime approached.”
“By the next morning, however, something unexpected had occurred: When the students arrived at their classroom at 8:55 a.m., they found yellow caution tape blocking the entrance. Looking inside, they saw the shades drawn, the lights out, and some kind of black substance covering the birds and otters. Meeting them outside the door, their teacher, Joan Wright-Albertini, explained: “There’s been an oil spill.”
“Oh, it’s just plastic bags,” challenged a few kids, who realized that the “oil” was actually stretched-out black lawn bags. But most of the students were transfixed for several long minutes. Then, deciding that they were unsure if it was safe to enter, they went into another classroom, where Wright-Albertini read from a picture book about oil spills.”
“The children already knew a little bit about oil spills because of the 2010 accident in the Gulf of Mexico -- but having one impact ‘their ocean’ made it suddenly personal. They leaned forward, a few with mouths open, listening to every word. When she finished, several students asked how they could clean up their habitat. Wright-Albertini, who had anticipated the question, showed them footage of an actual cleanup -- and, suddenly, they were propelled into action. Wearing gardening gloves, at one boy’s suggestion, they worked to clean up the habitat they had worked so hard to create. Later, they joined their teacher in a circle to discuss what they learned: why it was important to take care of nature, what they could do to help, and how the experience made them feel. ‘It broke my heart in two,’ said one girl. Wright-Albertini felt the same way. ‘I could have cried,’ she said later. ‘But it was so rich a life lesson, so deeply felt.’ Indeed, through the mock disaster, Wright-Albertini said she saw her students progress from loving the ocean creatures they had created to loving the ocean itself. She also observed them understand a little bit about their connection to nature and gain the knowledge that, even as six and seven year olds, they could make a difference. It was a tender, and exquisitely planned, teachable moment.” The children are learning the kind of awe that the psalmist feels when looking at the natural world.
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Psalm 104:1-9, 24, 35c
On the Farm
Farmer Luanne Armstrong feels the same awe on her farm, looking at creation, that the psalmist expresses. Each day, nature unveils new treasures for her. She tells about her affection even for wasps. “I live on a farm that was once part forest, part swamp. I live with animals both domesticated and wild, with plants, with flowers, with a garden. My grandparents lived here, my parents, my siblings and I, and then my children too. I walk on the land every day and never get bored. There is always something new to see and learn. In the summer, I sit on my deck, which overlooks a pond, a field, and past that, the lake. Barn swallows nest over my head. Paper wasps build small grey cones among the swallow nests. Once, I was sitting on my deck with a group of young people. A wasp came by to have a look. One young man looked up and exclaimed, ‘You have wasp nests up there.’ I do. My excuse to friends and family is these are nonaggressive paper wasps, not yellow jackets. But I wouldn't remove them in any case. ‘All you have to do is sit still,’ I said. ‘They will come by to see who you are. After they know you, they won't bother you.’ This poor young man gave me a look that said, very clearly, ‘crazy lady.’ But, to his credit, he didn't move. There was so much more I wanted to tell him, but, where to start?”
The day’s routines reveal new things to an attentive eye. “My brother takes our dogs and hikes up the mountain everyday. Often he follows the tracks of the female cougar that dens high on the mountains. Often he comes across a trail where she is following him. Sometimes they see each other. She never comes down to the farm but we are glad to have her on the mountain. There are too many deer and not enough predators. We welcome her return as a sign of an ecosystem recovering itself. My brother believes she knows him and recognizes him.” She adds, “Everywhere, in small ways, such translation continues. My daughter is an urban gardener. I'm a farmer. There's a difference, although we could argue all day about what it is. In her city garden, she planted her raspberries properly, out in the sun in good soil. But one plant reached up and across into the shadowed branches of her Gravenstein apple tree, and there it produced the earliest and fattest raspberries. The realization of the aliveness of the non-human is the crack in the paradigm.” The hand of the Creator lives in all of it, seeking our response full of awe.
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From team member Tom Willadsen:
Job 38:1-7, (34-41)
Application: As the preacher well knows, God does not answer the question Job asked. God informs Job, indirectly, that God made everything, so God gets to decide everything. If God were the Supreme Court, God would say Job does not have standing to bring a case. While that’s true, it’s quite unsatisfying, especially to those of us who like to have their questions answered as asked.
I call the preacher’s attention to a little known verse in the following chapter.
When (the ostrich) spreads its plumes aloft
it laughs at the horse and its rider. (39:18)
This is one of many places in scripture where laughter is an expression of superiority. Just as the ideal wife described in Proverbs 31 can laugh at the time to come, because she is not threatened by them. Chances are you’ve never pointed out that laughing ostriches are Biblical. The ostrich is not described as an especially smart, attentive or responsible creature, but it can out-run someone on horseback. So try to picture an ostrich looking over its shoulder (ostriches have shoulders; I just googled it) and laughing as it runs away. Then get into the meat of God’s defense to Job’s questions.
* * *
Psalm 104:1-9, 24, 35c (with vv. 25 & 26 added for context)
Application: This one’s political.
Yes, Psalm 104 is an ancient work, probably written by Egyptians. The sequence of creation described in Genesis 1 is probably based on Psalm 104.
The Leviathan mentioned in v. 26 is a creature with the form of a sea monster from Jewish belief. Its origin is in Ugaritic myth, in which it pits Baal against Mot, the god of the underworld. The Leviathan is defeated. So for the Leviathan to be described as having been made by the Hebrew god, the maker of heaven and earth was a profound insult to the Ugarites. It’s like the psalm said, “Our God created yours as a bathtub toy, to frolic with in the deep, mighty sea.”
* * *
Mark 10:35-45
Danger of ambition
Application: This insightful article shows ten ways that ambition, like that shown by James and John, can be harmful, even counter-productive in attaining one’s goals.
Two of the ten mentioned in the article have special relevance:
Grandiose dreams of all-encompassing glory, and entitlement and jealousy.
Perhaps you have experiences of being embarrassed by your own grandiosity, or harbored secret feelings of jealousy when it appears that someone else has received what you believe to be rightfully yours. To James and John’s credit; they ask Jesus.
And note how Jesus responds: first he asks to understand what their request is, then, after learning it, explains that he’s not the one who decides the eternal seating chart. Who knows, maybe these two disciples will get the best seats; their asking for them, however, indicates a certain selfish ambition that may be less than ideal.
* * *
Hebrews 5:1-10
Application: Who exactly is this Melchizedek character anyway?
If the Bible were a motion picture, one would say Melchizedek had a walk-on roll. There he is in chapter 14 of Genesis, the king of Salem (same letters at the Hebrew “shalom”) and also a priest of the Most High God. He meets Abram in the wilderness and caters a picnic with bread and wine after Abram defeated Cherdoraomer and the kings of Sodom. Melchizedek is bivocational, a priest and a king. No one else combines those two rolls anywhere else in scripture. Christians understand Jesus as prophet, priest and king. Here’s Mel who’s got two out of three. Still, this is no big deal. In the Hebrew scriptures Melchizedek is only mentioned again in Psalm 110.
One of the things that sets priests apart, in any tradition, is that they mediate between God and humanity. Another is they offer sacrifices. These are the two facts that set me, a Presbyterian minister, apart from a priest in any tradition. There are probably others; seminary was a long time ago.
The priest does not self-appoint. Whether Melchizedek or Christ himself, the status of priest is bestowed by the Lord. The author of Hebrews harks back to the words that came from above when Jesus was baptized in the Jordan:” You are my son…”
Finally, even the high priest, Hebrews reminds the reader, is human and fallible, subject to weakness. He makes sacrifices for his own sins, as well as for the sins of the people.
Combine this image of the priesthood with the desire for glory that James and John showed in the gospel reading.
Perhaps this is the moment to address the unfolding scandal around the systematic abuse of young people by priests. Or, in my opinion, the larger scandal of moving abusive priests to new locations where they abused additional young people, shattering their lives forever.
Yes, priests are in positions of authority, even prestige, but they are also just as human as anyone else.
* * *
Isaiah 53:4-12
Application: This reading may be the strongest Hebrew scripture basis for substitutional atonement. The suffering servant was wounded for our transgressions, bore our infirmities, carried our diseases and “upon him was the punishment that made us whole.”
The substitutionary atonement, or the vicarious suffering of the servant for the sin of the community is an enormously difficult concept to address in a sermon. Or anywhere else. It is one of many ways Christians have through the years come to understand Christ’s death on the cross.
In the mid-80s the first Christian heavy metal rock band, Stryper, was at the peak of their popularity. Their best-selling album, To Hell with the Devil, went platinum, for sales of more than one million copies. They took their name from this passage in Isaiah 53:5, “He was wounded for our transgressions.”
* * *
Psalm 91:9-16
Application: And He will raise you up on eagles’ wings…
This Michael Joncas composition is based on this reading from Psalms. I cannot imagine any congregation hearing this reading and not thinking of “On Eagles’ Wings,” so if you read it, be sure you at least have a recording to play at coffee hour, if the choir doesn’t sing it as an anthem.
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From team member Ron Love:
Psalm 91:9-10; Hebrews 5:6,10
Ministry; Compassion; Shepherding; Refuge; High Priest
Dr. Dennis Mukwege was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2018 for his campaign to end mass rape as a “weapon of war.” Mukwege opened a hospital in Bukavu, located in the eastern part of the Congo, to treat the women who are sexual abused by militant rebels. As a gynecologist he performs up to ten lifesaving operations a day on women of all ages, with some being girls as young as 3-years-old. The extreme violence of the rapes in many cases has caused their reproductive and digestive tracts to be ripped apart. In addition to this, many of the women were tortured, such as having their buttocks burned, have had foreign objects inserted into them or were shot in the genitals.
Mukwege said in an interview, “It’s not a women question; it’s a humanitarian question, and men have to take responsibility to end it. It’s not an African problem. In Bosnia, Syria, Liberia, Columbia, you have the same thing.” In a fiery speech delivered before the United Nations in 2012, Dr. Mukwege said that nations are not doing enough for what he called “an unjust war that has used violence against women and rape as a strategy of war.”
Shortly after this speech, having returned to the Congo, four armed gunmen crept into his home and took his children hostage. They then waited for Mukwege to return home from work. In the hail of bullets that followed he was able throw himself on the ground and somehow survive. After the attempt on his life he went into exile, only to return to the hospital two months later.
At the end of the interview with Jeffrey Gettleman of The New York Times, Dr. Mukwege showed the reporter the lush green hills just beyond the hospital compound. Then, in a polite and humble voice Mukwege said, “There used to be a lot of gorillas in there. But now they’ve been replaced by much more savage beasts.”
* * *
Psalm 104:1; Isaiah 53:8; Hebrews 5:7; Mark 10:43-45
Worship; Hope; Prayer; Humility; Discipleship
In September 2018 the memorial to those who died on Flight 93 was dedicated. The Flight 93 National Memorial is located in the field where Flight 93, a commuter flight from New Jersey to California, was highjacked by terrorists on September 11, 2001.
As passengers on the Boeing 757 learned of other highjacked aircraft being used as flying bombs to be crashed into buildings, they decided to act. The passengers decided to retake their airplane with the now famous words, “Let’s Roll.” As they stormed the cockpit the terrorist pilot rolled the plane, trying to get the intruders off balance. The aircraft then became inverted and crashed at 563 mph on the edge of a reclaimed strip, near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, at 10:30 a.m. The impact ignited about 100 hemlock trees. All 40 passengers were killed.
The 44-acre impact site is fenced off from the public. A 17-ton sandstone marks the exact impact site. Though at memorial plaza the Flight 93 National Memorial, called the Tower of Voices, stands proud. The 93-foot structure is shaped like a hemlock tree, and is surrounded by hemlock trees. The tower has 40 wind chimes, one for each passenger, and each has a distinctive and coordinated sound. The surrounding hemlock trees symbolize sound waves. The bells range from 5 to 10 feet long, and weigh as much as 150 pounds.
Former Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge, and the first secretary of Homeland security, said the Tower of Voices will be “an everlasting concert by our heroes.”
WORSHIP
by George Reed
Call to Worship:
Leader: Let us bless our God who is very great.
People: God is clothed with honor and majesty.
Leader: God is wrapped in light as with a garment.
People: God makes the winds to be messengers.
Leader: O God, how manifold are your works!
People: In wisdom you have made them all.
OR
Leader: Our Shepherd God calls us to gather.
People: We come at the voice of our Shepherd.
Leader: In love and gentleness God invites us.
People: With gratitude we enter into God’s presence.
Leader: As God leads us, God invites us to lead others.
People: In love we will call others to join our journey.
Hymns and Songs:
Holy God, We Praise Thy Name
UMH: 79
H82: 366
PH: 460
NNBH: 13
NCH: 276
LBW: 535
ELA: 414
W&P: 138
Renew: 53
Praise, My Soul, the King of Heaven
UMH: 66
H82: 410
PH: 478
CH: 23
LBW: 549
ELA: 864/865
W&P: 82
AMEC: 70
Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise
UMH: 103
H82: 423
PH: 263
NCH: 1
CH: 66
LBW: 526
ELA: 834
W&P: 48
AMEC: 71
STLT: 273
Renew: 46
Jesu, Jesu
UMH: 432
H82: 602
PH: 367
NCH: 498
CH: 600
ELA: 708
W&P: 273
CCB: 66
Renew: 289
Jesus Calls Us
UMH: 398
H82: 549/550
NNBH: 183
NCH: 171/172
CH: 337
LBW: 494
ELA: 696
W&P: 345
AMEC: 238
Take Up Thy Cross
UMH: 415
H82: 675
PH: 393
LBW: 398
ELA: 667
W&P: 351
AMEC: 294
Make Me a Captive, Lord
UMH: 421
PH: 378
O Master, Let Me Walk with Thee
UMH: 430
H82: 659/660
PH: 357
NNBH: 445
NCH: 503
CH: 602
LBW: 492
ELA: 818
W&P: 589
AMEC: 299
Make Me a Servant
CCB: 90
Holy Ground
CCB: 5
Music Resources Key:
UMH: United Methodist Hymnal
H82: The Hymnal 1982
PH: Presbyterian Hymnal
AAHH: African American Heritage Hymnal
NNBH: The New National Baptist Hymnal
NCH: The New Century Hymnal
CH: Chalice Hymnal
LBW: Lutheran Book of Worship
ELA: Evangelical Lutheran Worship
W&P: Worship & Praise
AMEC: African Methodist Episcopal Church Hymnal
STLT: Singing the Living Tradition
CCB: Cokesbury Chorus Book
Renew: Renew! Songs & Hymns for Blended Worship
Prayer for the Day/Collect
O God who leads your people as a gentle shepherd:
Grant us the grace to faithfully follow you
and to lead as a servant and shepherd;
through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.
OR
We praise you, O God, because you lead us as our kind shepherd. You came among us and served us. Help us to be faithful to you by always using leadership as an opportunity to serve others. Amen.
OR
We praise you, O God, because you have created our world and all that exists. You have given us a wonderful home on this planet. Help us to honor you by caring for your creation which you have entrusted to us. Amen.
Prayer of Confession
Leader: Let us confess to God and before one another our sins and especially our lust for power and disregard for your creation.
People: We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. We are hungry for power and are eager to take positions of power where ever we can. Even in our families and other personal relationships, we want to be in charge. We even want to be in charge of your earth and we have abused and scarred it. Forgive us and bring us back to our right mind where we understand servanthood and stewardship once again. Amen.
Leader: God is pleased when we look at ourselves and are honest. God is doubly pleased when we are willing to change and choose the way of life. Receive God’s grace and serve God as you serve others and God’s earth.
Prayers of the People
Glory and praise to you, O God, creator of then entire world. You created us in your image and showed us in Jesus what that should look like.
(The following paragraph may be used if a separate prayer of confession has not been used.)
We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. We are hungry for power and are eager to take positions of power where ever we can. Even in our families and other personal relationships, we want to be in charge. We even want to be in charge of your earth and we have abused and scarred it. Forgive us and bring us back to our right mind where we understand servant-hood and stewardship once again.
We give you thanks for this world and joys of life. We thank you for your presence with us day by day. You have graciously led us from darkness into light through Jesus.
(Other thanksgivings may be offered.)
We pray for all your children everywhere. We pray for those who suffer under oppression and violence. We pray for those who dwell in places that are polluted marred by our carelessness.
(Other intercessions may be offered.)
All these things we ask in the Name of our Savior Jesus Christ who taught us to pray together saying:
Our Father....Amen.
(Or if the Our Father is not used at this point in the service)
All this we ask in the Name of the Blessed and Holy Trinity. Amen.
Children’s Sermon Starter
Have a picture or some other object that someone has made for you. Talk to the children about how much you like it and appreciate that it was made for you. Tell them you need to decide what to do with it. You could hang it on the refrigerator or line the bird cage with it or use it to wrap the garbage. What would honor the person who gave it to you? Not trashing it. God made the world for us. To honor God we need to take care of it and not trash it.
CHILDREN'S SERMON
Like Tea Cups
by Dean Feldmeyer
Hebrews 5:1-10
You will need: An antique teacup.
Note: I used a teacup because I had one. Other items may be substituted so long as they fit the purpose of the text.
Say something like this:
Good morning, boys and girls.
(Holding up teacup.)
Do you all know what this is? It’s called a teacup. It belonged to my great, great, great grandmother. It’s over 100 years old and it’s very delicate. My great, great, great grandma drank her tea and her coffee from this little cup.
What else do you notice about it?
It’s pretty, yes, it is. It has flowers painted on it. But they’re kinda faded, aren’t they? In some places you can’t even see the flowers, can you?
It’s little, yes. It’s much littler than most of our coffee and tea cups and mugs, today.
It’s cracked and chipped. Yes, it is. (Point out cracks and chips.)
It’s stained, yeah. Some people might think it’s dirty but it isn’t. It’s very clean. I just washed it before I brought it over here. Those stains on the inside are from the coffee and tea that were in it.
Whenever I pick up this little teacup and look at the chips and stains and cracks I think of my grandma drinking her coffee or tea out of it. I think of her chubby little fingers holding this handle. I think of all the good things she did for our family long before I was ever born.
I think of her.
Do you know why it’s cracked and chipped and faded and stained?
Becaue people used it.
It wasn’t a decoration. Pretty as it must have been a hundred years ago when it was brand new, it wasn’t a decoration. It wasn’t supposed to be put on a shelf and admired. It was supposed to be used. So my great, great, great grandma used it. And she used all the other dishes that came with it.
She used the plates and saucers and bowls and all the other pieces. Eight of each. Thirty two pieces in all.
And do you know how many pieces are left?
Three.
Yep, only three pieces of grandma’s good china are left. This teacup, one saucer, and one little bowl.
What do you suppose happened to the other pieces? Yes, that’s right. They all got broken. Over the years they got dropped or mishandled in some way and they broke.
Maybe she should have boxed them up and never used them. That way they never would have gotten broken, right?
Well, maybe. Someone might have dropped or stepped on the whole box but they would have been a lot safer than they were being used every meal, day in and day out.
Only, that’s not what they were made for is it?
They weren’t made to be stored away somewhere in a box.
They were made to be used. So she used them. She took a chance that they might get broken and she used them to feed her family.
You know, God wants us to remember that we are kinda like this teacup. We are not meant to be wrapped up and protected so we stay pretty. We are supposed to be used to help others even if that means that we occasionally get nicked or cut or our feelings get hurt.
God doesn’t want us to stay clean and pretty all the time.
God wants us to be real, and when you’re real, sometimes you get nicked or cracked or stained in some way. But that’s okay. All those nicks and scratches and stains just say to the whole world, this person is real.
There’s another word for allowing oursleves to be nicked and scratched and stained. It’s a good word and we Christians use it a lot.
The word is: VULNERABLE.
When you’re vulnerable, you can get stained and nicked and cut and scratched. But that’s okay. That’s how we know we’re doing the work of Jesus.
That’s how we know we’ve been vulnerable, just like Jesus wants us to be.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Immediate Word, October 21, 2018, issue.
Copyright 2018 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
For October 21, 2018:
- Vulnerable Leadership by Bethany Peerbolte -- Many feel a leader should be strong, flawless, always ready with the answers and a plan B. Hebrews and Mark tells of a different kind of leader...
- Second Thoughts: Surviving the Storm by Chris Keating -- God’s voice thunders from a whirlwind of climate change, inviting humans to cherish creation.
- Sermon illustrations by Mary Austin, Tom Willadsen and Ron Love.
- Worship resources by George Reed that focus on vulnerable leadership as well as caring for the earth.
- Like Tea Cups Children’s sermon by Dean Feldmeyer -- When you’re vulnerable, you can get stained and nicked and cut and scratched like a tea cup. That’s how we know we’re doing the work of Jesus.
Vulnerable Leadership
by Bethany Peerbolte
Hebrews 5:1-10; Mark 10:35-45
In the Scripture
In this section of the letter to the Hebrews the author seeks to connect Jesus to the office of the high priest. To do that characteristics are given of a high priest and then shown how Jesus not only has those characteristics but displays them in a way that proves he is the messiah. One of these characteristics is that a high priest must have sympathy for the sins of the people. Verse two says “he is able to deal gently with the ignorant and wayward, since he himself is subject to weakness.” This turns into a presentation of why it imperative for Jesus to be human, to make him subject to the weakness all humans face.
This book relies heavily on Jewish traditions. When this author references sin they are very careful to signify what kind of sin they are actually talking about. In his commentary on this letter William Barclay points out that throughout the Old Testament sins of ignorance are forgivable but sins of impudence are not. The writer of this letter makes it clear the sin this high priest empathizes with are sins of ignorance. These sins include lack of knowledge but also extended to times when a person sinned in a fit of anger or passion or sinned because they were overcome by a powerful temptation. Sins of ignorance were repented for in tears and true confession. The sins that were not covered in the category of sins of ignorance were cold, deliberate actions that the person did not feel remorse for afterward.
When someone felt true remorse and sought out the high priest to make a sacrifice for them, then the high priest would be merciful. The high priest would see in the repentant a piece of themselves. Since the priest had also been subject to the temptations of the world and the flesh the priest would understand and gently guide the sinner back to a right relationship with God.
What makes Jesus even more remarkable is that Jesus was merciful even though he never had to repent. Jesus was able to understand the plight of a sinner without having to fall into the hole with them. Jesus perfectly exhibits this trait of a high priest.
In Mark’s gospel James and John start a conversation that could bring down the whole circle of apostles. They begin to ask who will sit next to Jesus after his final triumph. They do not doubt the victory is coming and assume Jesus’ throne room will be like all the others. The most powerful and important people to Jesus will sit on his right and left. As siblings James and John have most likely been arguing since birth about who is better than the other. This rivalry spills over into Jesus’ lap and his answer is that they must be willing to go through the trials he is about to go through. The word translated here as “baptized” is closer to the English word “submerged.” Jesus asks them if they are willing to be submerged in everything by which Jesus is surrounded. At the time of the question that means persecution and discomfort but when they answer they blindly agree to pain, suffering, and death.
The reality check from Jesus does not end the problem this rivalry has stirred up though. The other ten are angry that James and John assumed they were the obvious choices for Jesus’s right and left hands. It is time for Jesus to show them exactly how the standards of leadership are different in his kingdom.
Worldly leadership requires the collection of workers who will do ones’ will. The leader’s goal should be to exert minimal effort while getting more and more done. One seeks to advance up the roles, working hard now so they do not have to later. In the kingdom of God that is reversed. The leader seeks to work the hardest for those put in their care, collecting service to others instead of collecting servants.
These verses from Hebrews and Mark present a new kind of leader. In a world where leaders are meant to be flawless, Jesus shows that the strongest leaders recognize their weakness. In a world where leaders strive to do little, Jesus shows that the best leaders will give all they can to serve others. In other words, leaders should be vulnerable. They should be open about their flaws so that others feel comfortable seeking them out for help. Leaders should not shy away from the dirty work but instead embrace it and do it themselves. Vulnerability was not easy for humanity then and it hasn’t gotten any easier today.
In the News
When Oliver Cromwell, English military leader, had his portrait done the painter thought it would be kind to leave off the many warts that spotted Cromwell’s face. Cromwell’s response was to insist he be painted warts and all. The best leaders are the ones who do not see their flaws as something to hide, but recognize their unique experiences add to the strength of their leadership.
Brene Brown does a wonderful job describing the struggle humanity has with vulnerability. Her research into human connection lead her to face the enemy of connection, shame. Brown noticed the people who overcame their shame to achieve connection were also the people who lived whole-heartedly. One of the key characteristics of a whole-hearted person is vulnerability. People who did not let shame rule their lives were people who took the risk to say “I love you” first and saw their flaws as strength. In Brown’s Ted Talk she describes her struggle to become more vulnerable herself, and challenges parents, believers, politicians, and corporations to be vulnerable.
In corporations, vulnerability is not just for those at the bottom of the system. Leaders should also embrace this need for openness and honesty. Brown’s research has inspired Forbes, Harvard Business Review, and Strategy Business to look at how vulnerable leaders impact a work place. Their conclusions all speak to the same observations. For their workforce, vulnerable leaders increase productivity. They allow space for failure without catastrophic repercussions which allow the team to play around with new ideas. Hopefully they allow coming across the next big breakthrough. When a team has a leader who values vulnerability the connection between team members is stronger. True friendships and caring take place. The benefits aren’t just for the employees though. Leaders who are vulnerable show lowered stress levels. Vulnerability allows them to reach out for help when they need it and reject the myth that great people achieve greatness on their own. When leaders admit to their own shortcomings they show themselves the love they need to heal and get that same love back from those to which they open up.
One group that is helping people become more vulnerable is Failure Lab. This group of professionals seek to “eliminate the fear of failure and encourage intelligent risk taking.” At their events people tell the audience about a failure they have experienced. The speaker simply tells the facts, no interpretation, no “this is what I learned” discussion, they only tell the facts of the failure. Speakers are encouraged to embrace their part in the failure and advised not to blame others or try to offset the true weight of their failure. Then the speaker leaves and the audience is given time to reflect on the story they heard. The range of lessons is compounded as each person tells their gained wisdom. Failure Lab is designed to be a safe space to air personal and professional shortcomings and allow the community to deepen connections through the individual’s vulnerability.
Vulnerability is not just about admitting one’s mistakes. It is also opening oneself up to rejection and persecution. It is often being willing to step between someone else and the accuser. Everyday women must walk through lines of protesters to receive healthcare. Vicki Bloom walks that same path to work. Bloom is a doula, which normally means she provides emotional and spiritual support to women during childbirth. However, she also serves as an “abortion doula” and has helped over two thousand women through their abortions. “Witnessing is a big part of what doulas do” says Bloom. It is not about solving problems or making anything better, it’s about being present. Present through the joy and through the pain. Vulnerable people can gently handle life’s messy decisions and unbearable moments with others.
When Fortune ranked the top fifty leaders of 2018 they put the “march for our lives” student leaders and the leaders of “#metoo” in the number one and number three spots. These movements would not exist without vulnerability. Every leader in these movements have had to look at themselves and decide vulnerability is more important than reputation. There are plenty of examples of people who do not show vulnerable leadership. Turn on any news channel for 10 minutes and make a list. Jesus is calling, yelling, for us to embrace vulnerable leadership instead of what we see on the news.
In the Sermon
A preacher may have to dig into personal experience to find a shining example of vulnerable leadership, like someone who volunteered for the hardest jobs on a mission trip worksite. Perhaps it is a teacher who went above and beyond to make sure every student got a quality education, or a friend who opened up about their own experience to make another’s experience seem less shameful. In fact, to offer a personal story for this sermon may be just the example needed to make it come to life. This could be the chance to talk about a failure and set the tone that even pastors are flawed.
It seems our world is begging for authentic vulnerability, when someone is accused or a corporation makes a mistake I often hear people dreaming of a real apology. Brene Brown even says we want to hear “I’m sorry, and I’ll fix it.” In September Tiger Woods won his first tournament since 2013. The headlines were focused on his win and steered clear of his past scandals -- possibly because he was vulnerable in the aftermath. He sought help, acted fairly toward his wife, and admitted his flaws. He lived out “I’m sorry, I’ll fix it.”
We all have something or someone we would say those words to. God’s grace is that when we say those words we aren’t counted out. In God’s kingdom, when we say those words we are given even more responsibility. We are asked to serve others, to help them say “I’m sorry. I’ll fix it.” We are led by a high priest who didn’t have to say those words but still did. Jesus fixed our broken relationship with God. Jesus lives a life subject to the weakness of sin and could know our struggle. Jesus did not use his authority to force us to pay for the mistakes we made, but bent down to serve those who needed a piece of his power.
SECOND THOUGHTS
Surviving the Storm
by Chris Keating
Job 38 and Psalm 104
Editor's note: Relating to the release of a new, ever urgent climate report last week, check out Chris's excellent and important work Charged with Grandeur: Sermons and Practices for Delighting in God's Creation (CSS Publishing).
It’s not hard to miss the sad irony of Hurricane Michael slamming the United States the same week a United Nations panel issued a dire assessment of global warming.
Last week, Michael’s brutality pummeled a path across the south, in many cases drenching areas still soggy from Hurricane Florence just weeks ago. In Florida, the hurricane pressed against the walls of the Lynn Haven police station where 40 people sought shelter, bringing a Job-like affliction of tragedy. For nearly an hour, Lynn Haven Mayor Margo Anderson wondered if the storm would claim her life.
Inside the police station debris fell as the storm’s eye blew around them. “I looked over at my husband and I took his hand and I said we're not going to make it,” said Anderson. “We are not going to make it.”
But then the silence fell. As the storm subsided, Anderson and the others who had sought shelter crawled out of the debris, like Job rising at the invitation of God to ponder the calamity which had befallen. From Florida to Virginia, Michael’s force turned deadly, adding to the misery of many who were still recovering from Hurricane Florence just weeks earlier.
Nearby in Mexico Beach nearly the entire town was leveled, turning the small town of about 1,000 into an apocalyptic wasteland. Mexico Beach faced the storm’s fiercest blows, enduring 155 mph winds that leveled entire neighborhoods and toppled power lines. Strangely, as the storm moved inland it picked up force, pummeling soggy areas in the Carolinas before heading through Virginia.
It was a storm of near-biblical proportions.
It’s becoming a familiar story. Scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released data in September showing a correlation between climate change and increases in major hurricane frequency, and predicted a continued increase in storm intensity. Devastating storms will become routine.
But Michael’s arrival in the United States also coincided with the release of a new climate study released by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The IPCC, a consortium of scientists convened by the United Nations, issued a report analyzing more than 6,000 studies.
The IPCC’s dire conclusions described a world ablaze in wildfires and beset by food shortages. They warned this isn’t some far off dystopian future. Instead, it’s a hard to miss cataclysm which will impact nearly every nation. Most adults and children alive today will experience the consequences of climate change directly, unless immediate action is taken.
There’s a lot at stake. Based on current trends, the world will warm more than 1.5 degrees Celsius by 2040. Writer David Wallace-Wells notes that will likely bring a sweep of suffering the world has never experienced:
Hundreds of millions of lives are at stake, the report declares…Nearly all coral reefs would die out, wildfires and heat waves would sweep across the planet annually, and the interplay between drought and flooding and temperature would mean that the world’s food supply would become dramatically less secure.
The worst news is that it may be too late. Wallace-Wells continues: Avoiding that scale of suffering, the report says, requires such a thorough transformation of the world’s economy, agriculture, and culture that “there is no documented historical precedent.”
These are not hair-brained conclusions from conspiracy theorists; these are the findings of the world’s most prominent scientists. The IPCC’s report found that “Climate-related risks to health, livelihoods, food security, water supply, human security, and economic growth are projected to increase with global warming of 1.5°C and increase further with 2°C.”
It’s a call to greater humility in our relationship to creation, and invitation to a more hopeful future.
Job might resonate with that invitation. Like survivors of terrifying storms -- as well as wildfires, floods, and other calamities -- Job climbs out of the storm in search of hope. Translations vary, but the NIV rendering of chapter 29, verse 1 seems particularly direct. Job reflects on his misery. His plaintive cry emerges: “How I long for the months gone by, for the days when God watched over me, when God’s lamp shone upon my head.”
God’s response to Job in chapter 37 is about as comforting as reports of global climate change. Indeed, Yahweh seems particularly dismissive of Job’s experience. These hardly seem like the words of one slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love:
“Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind: "Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? Gird up your loins like a man, I will question you, and you shall declare to me. Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements -- surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it?
Whoa, God! What about a little empathy? These are not the words anyone should say to the victims of tragedy.
Yet they may also be words of invitation. God points to the astonishing beauty of the cosmos, demanding Job to reconsider his vocation. Follow the speech, this guided tour of the universe continues and note the similarities of the IPCC’s ominous warnings regarding the climate.
It’s a theme worth considering today. “Who has put wisdom in the inward parts, or given understanding to the mind?” Job is invited to recall that God is God, and that Job is not.
Suddenly, a new possibility emerges. Not only has Job imagined that he is the center of the universe, he has assumed that the world is a safe place. Yet, as God’s tour reminds Job, the world is both beautiful and wild, and not at all safe. God invites Job to consider his place in creation.
As Kathryn M. Schifferdecker notes, such an invitation may not seem to fit the conventional image of comfort. But it is a profoundly stunning invitation, says Schifferdecker, which calls humans to “live freely in a world full of heartbreaking suffering and heart-stopping beauty.”
There’s an echo of this in Psalm 104. Overcome with praise, the psalmist elicits a hopeful response to what often feels like the overwhelming data of despair. The psalmist understands the beauty and fragility of creation, an element many have forgotten in the contemporary world. In a world that is beautiful and wild, tamed and terrible, God’s people are called to recall “In wisdom, you have made them all.”
ILLUSTRATIONS
From team member Mary Austin:
Mark 10:35-45
Competition
James and John are longing to be first -- they have placed themselves in competition with the other disciples. Jesus reminds them of the power of not being in competition, a lesson one young swimmer learned from her coach. As she tells it, she had finished a race with a time that was worse than she expected, and had some time to wait before her next event. “I began to dwell on what I had to do. I knew that I would be really disappointed if I didn’t break a minute on my last chance. As most athletes know, when you have time to sit and think about what you need to do, you start to get nervous. That is exactly what I was beginning to do; only it wasn’t the good kind of nerves that get you psyched up -- it was the bad kind that made you want to sit in a corner and hide.” She got her coach’s attention, and asked for a pep talk. Instead, he told a story.
She said the speech was better than she could have imagined:
“I’m going to tell you a story, Lauren,” he began, “about dogs. I was watching those little toy-dog competitions on TV the other day. You know, the ones where those little yuppers run through the hoops and up and down the teeter-totter and all that? Aren’t those things just the greatest? Well there was this one dog that was just a thrill to see. He was running through that course like none other, just zipping past everything. Of course, his owner was this silly old lady with a big, flowery dress and a floppy hat. It was just a sight to be seen, that little dog and that woman. Now, this was an exciting dog to watch because he was going so fast, he leaped onto the platform at the end of the race, and the crowed was ecstatic because the dog had not only just won the event, but he just broke a record! He jumped into his owner’s arms and was so happy like little dogs are when they’re doing those things.”
“Then the crowed went quiet. They looked at the course and noticed that one of the poles that the dog had to run through was knocked down. That adds an extra few seconds onto his final score. To make it worse, it wasn’t even the dog’s fault that it was knocked down. The woman bumped into it when she was guiding her dog through the course with her big floppy hat! Because of this, the dog lost. The look on the woman’s face was of obvious pain. She felt so guilty that she ruined this incredible moment for her dog. But it was kind of interesting, watching that woman and her dog together. She looked so sad, but the dog was the same. Then it occurred to me that the dog didn’t care whether he won or lost. Honestly, he probably didn’t even know he was in a competition. All he knew was that he was having a good time running around through some hoops and it was a good day for him. He was doing what he loved and that was all that mattered.”
“So Lauren,” the coach continued, “when you’re swimming out there, remember that you’re here because you love to swim and nothing more. You didn’t spend all those hours practicing because you hate the water or because you want to be an amazing swimmer -- you’re there because you love it.”
So she did. She says, “I remember thinking to myself during that important race to go my hardest because I’m out there doing what I loved. It doesn’t matter how it ends up, but just remember to enjoy the moment because it’s the last I’ll have of it for a while. Oh yeah -- that was the day that I finally broke a minute in the 100 Freestyle.”
Maybe we’re not here to be first or last, just because we love Jesus and want to be with him.
* * *
Mark 10:35-45
Being Vulnerable
As Bethany Peerbolte talks about in her article, the ability to be vulnerable is a valuable skill. Author Mike Robbins talks about concrete ways to do this at work. One of his tips is to harness the power of appreciation. “Showing appreciation is fundamental to building strong relationships, keeping negative things in perspective, and empowering teams. However, it is different from offering recognition. We often think of these things as the same, especially in professional settings; but recognition is based on results or performance -- what people do or produce -- while appreciation is about people’s inherent value or who they are.” He adds, “Of course, we want to do what we can to effectively recognize successful outcomes like sales results, projects completed, or ideas implemented. But behind every success or failure is a living, breathing human being. Appreciation is about focusing on our gratitude for people’s effort, as well as the human qualities and characteristics they possess that we value -- such as humility, kindness, or humor -- regardless of the outcomes. It is something we can express at any time.” Showing appreciation allows our deeper selves to connect with the deep gifts in other people.
Jesus is forming the disciples into a team, to put it into today’s language. He’s building skills in them that will survive his death. Mike Robbins says that, “the most significant element of team success is what’s known as psychological safety: a culture of trust where people feel safe to speak up, take risks, and know that they won’t be ridiculed for making mistakes or dissenting. When these actions -- speaking up, taking risks, and owning mistakes -- are modeled and celebrated, especially by those in leadership positions, it allows the team and the environment to be as psychologically safe as possible.”
These are risky moves, relying on the vulnerability of the leader. They are ways to serve, on the part of the leader, instead of being served.
* * *
Psalm 104:1-9, 24, 35c
We need nature
Standing in awe of creation, the psalmist writes, “O LORD, how manifold are your works! In wisdom you have made them all; the earth is full of your creatures.” It turns out that we are made to crave a connection with the natural world, created by our God. Author Janmarie Connor says that the natural world, the world of the psalmist, “induces the mind to settle, to generate space, and to begin harmonizing with its own pure and subtle vibration. Breathing regulates, heart rhythm stabilizes, blood pressure is reduced, feelings of acceptance, forgiveness, and well-being blossom. In an instant, you have traveled the distance from the head to the heart.”
This is so important the people are now talking about “Eco literacy,” expanding the idea of emotional intelligence to the natural world. This being taught to children, who have a head start on the awe factor. “For students in a first-grade class at Park Day School in Oakland, California, the most in-depth project of their young academic careers involved several months spent transforming their classroom into an ocean habitat, ripe with coral, jellyfish, leopard sharks, octopi, and deep-sea divers (or, at least, paper facsimiles of them). Their work culminated in one special night when, suited with goggles and homemade air tanks, the boys and girls shared what they had learned with their parents. It was such a successful end to their project that several children had to be gently dragged away as bedtime approached.”
“By the next morning, however, something unexpected had occurred: When the students arrived at their classroom at 8:55 a.m., they found yellow caution tape blocking the entrance. Looking inside, they saw the shades drawn, the lights out, and some kind of black substance covering the birds and otters. Meeting them outside the door, their teacher, Joan Wright-Albertini, explained: “There’s been an oil spill.”
“Oh, it’s just plastic bags,” challenged a few kids, who realized that the “oil” was actually stretched-out black lawn bags. But most of the students were transfixed for several long minutes. Then, deciding that they were unsure if it was safe to enter, they went into another classroom, where Wright-Albertini read from a picture book about oil spills.”
“The children already knew a little bit about oil spills because of the 2010 accident in the Gulf of Mexico -- but having one impact ‘their ocean’ made it suddenly personal. They leaned forward, a few with mouths open, listening to every word. When she finished, several students asked how they could clean up their habitat. Wright-Albertini, who had anticipated the question, showed them footage of an actual cleanup -- and, suddenly, they were propelled into action. Wearing gardening gloves, at one boy’s suggestion, they worked to clean up the habitat they had worked so hard to create. Later, they joined their teacher in a circle to discuss what they learned: why it was important to take care of nature, what they could do to help, and how the experience made them feel. ‘It broke my heart in two,’ said one girl. Wright-Albertini felt the same way. ‘I could have cried,’ she said later. ‘But it was so rich a life lesson, so deeply felt.’ Indeed, through the mock disaster, Wright-Albertini said she saw her students progress from loving the ocean creatures they had created to loving the ocean itself. She also observed them understand a little bit about their connection to nature and gain the knowledge that, even as six and seven year olds, they could make a difference. It was a tender, and exquisitely planned, teachable moment.” The children are learning the kind of awe that the psalmist feels when looking at the natural world.
* * *
Psalm 104:1-9, 24, 35c
On the Farm
Farmer Luanne Armstrong feels the same awe on her farm, looking at creation, that the psalmist expresses. Each day, nature unveils new treasures for her. She tells about her affection even for wasps. “I live on a farm that was once part forest, part swamp. I live with animals both domesticated and wild, with plants, with flowers, with a garden. My grandparents lived here, my parents, my siblings and I, and then my children too. I walk on the land every day and never get bored. There is always something new to see and learn. In the summer, I sit on my deck, which overlooks a pond, a field, and past that, the lake. Barn swallows nest over my head. Paper wasps build small grey cones among the swallow nests. Once, I was sitting on my deck with a group of young people. A wasp came by to have a look. One young man looked up and exclaimed, ‘You have wasp nests up there.’ I do. My excuse to friends and family is these are nonaggressive paper wasps, not yellow jackets. But I wouldn't remove them in any case. ‘All you have to do is sit still,’ I said. ‘They will come by to see who you are. After they know you, they won't bother you.’ This poor young man gave me a look that said, very clearly, ‘crazy lady.’ But, to his credit, he didn't move. There was so much more I wanted to tell him, but, where to start?”
The day’s routines reveal new things to an attentive eye. “My brother takes our dogs and hikes up the mountain everyday. Often he follows the tracks of the female cougar that dens high on the mountains. Often he comes across a trail where she is following him. Sometimes they see each other. She never comes down to the farm but we are glad to have her on the mountain. There are too many deer and not enough predators. We welcome her return as a sign of an ecosystem recovering itself. My brother believes she knows him and recognizes him.” She adds, “Everywhere, in small ways, such translation continues. My daughter is an urban gardener. I'm a farmer. There's a difference, although we could argue all day about what it is. In her city garden, she planted her raspberries properly, out in the sun in good soil. But one plant reached up and across into the shadowed branches of her Gravenstein apple tree, and there it produced the earliest and fattest raspberries. The realization of the aliveness of the non-human is the crack in the paradigm.” The hand of the Creator lives in all of it, seeking our response full of awe.
* * * * * * * * *
From team member Tom Willadsen:
Job 38:1-7, (34-41)
Application: As the preacher well knows, God does not answer the question Job asked. God informs Job, indirectly, that God made everything, so God gets to decide everything. If God were the Supreme Court, God would say Job does not have standing to bring a case. While that’s true, it’s quite unsatisfying, especially to those of us who like to have their questions answered as asked.
I call the preacher’s attention to a little known verse in the following chapter.
When (the ostrich) spreads its plumes aloft
it laughs at the horse and its rider. (39:18)
This is one of many places in scripture where laughter is an expression of superiority. Just as the ideal wife described in Proverbs 31 can laugh at the time to come, because she is not threatened by them. Chances are you’ve never pointed out that laughing ostriches are Biblical. The ostrich is not described as an especially smart, attentive or responsible creature, but it can out-run someone on horseback. So try to picture an ostrich looking over its shoulder (ostriches have shoulders; I just googled it) and laughing as it runs away. Then get into the meat of God’s defense to Job’s questions.
* * *
Psalm 104:1-9, 24, 35c (with vv. 25 & 26 added for context)
Application: This one’s political.
Yes, Psalm 104 is an ancient work, probably written by Egyptians. The sequence of creation described in Genesis 1 is probably based on Psalm 104.
The Leviathan mentioned in v. 26 is a creature with the form of a sea monster from Jewish belief. Its origin is in Ugaritic myth, in which it pits Baal against Mot, the god of the underworld. The Leviathan is defeated. So for the Leviathan to be described as having been made by the Hebrew god, the maker of heaven and earth was a profound insult to the Ugarites. It’s like the psalm said, “Our God created yours as a bathtub toy, to frolic with in the deep, mighty sea.”
* * *
Mark 10:35-45
Danger of ambition
Application: This insightful article shows ten ways that ambition, like that shown by James and John, can be harmful, even counter-productive in attaining one’s goals.
Two of the ten mentioned in the article have special relevance:
Grandiose dreams of all-encompassing glory, and entitlement and jealousy.
Perhaps you have experiences of being embarrassed by your own grandiosity, or harbored secret feelings of jealousy when it appears that someone else has received what you believe to be rightfully yours. To James and John’s credit; they ask Jesus.
And note how Jesus responds: first he asks to understand what their request is, then, after learning it, explains that he’s not the one who decides the eternal seating chart. Who knows, maybe these two disciples will get the best seats; their asking for them, however, indicates a certain selfish ambition that may be less than ideal.
* * *
Hebrews 5:1-10
Application: Who exactly is this Melchizedek character anyway?
If the Bible were a motion picture, one would say Melchizedek had a walk-on roll. There he is in chapter 14 of Genesis, the king of Salem (same letters at the Hebrew “shalom”) and also a priest of the Most High God. He meets Abram in the wilderness and caters a picnic with bread and wine after Abram defeated Cherdoraomer and the kings of Sodom. Melchizedek is bivocational, a priest and a king. No one else combines those two rolls anywhere else in scripture. Christians understand Jesus as prophet, priest and king. Here’s Mel who’s got two out of three. Still, this is no big deal. In the Hebrew scriptures Melchizedek is only mentioned again in Psalm 110.
One of the things that sets priests apart, in any tradition, is that they mediate between God and humanity. Another is they offer sacrifices. These are the two facts that set me, a Presbyterian minister, apart from a priest in any tradition. There are probably others; seminary was a long time ago.
The priest does not self-appoint. Whether Melchizedek or Christ himself, the status of priest is bestowed by the Lord. The author of Hebrews harks back to the words that came from above when Jesus was baptized in the Jordan:” You are my son…”
Finally, even the high priest, Hebrews reminds the reader, is human and fallible, subject to weakness. He makes sacrifices for his own sins, as well as for the sins of the people.
Combine this image of the priesthood with the desire for glory that James and John showed in the gospel reading.
Perhaps this is the moment to address the unfolding scandal around the systematic abuse of young people by priests. Or, in my opinion, the larger scandal of moving abusive priests to new locations where they abused additional young people, shattering their lives forever.
Yes, priests are in positions of authority, even prestige, but they are also just as human as anyone else.
* * *
Isaiah 53:4-12
Application: This reading may be the strongest Hebrew scripture basis for substitutional atonement. The suffering servant was wounded for our transgressions, bore our infirmities, carried our diseases and “upon him was the punishment that made us whole.”
The substitutionary atonement, or the vicarious suffering of the servant for the sin of the community is an enormously difficult concept to address in a sermon. Or anywhere else. It is one of many ways Christians have through the years come to understand Christ’s death on the cross.
In the mid-80s the first Christian heavy metal rock band, Stryper, was at the peak of their popularity. Their best-selling album, To Hell with the Devil, went platinum, for sales of more than one million copies. They took their name from this passage in Isaiah 53:5, “He was wounded for our transgressions.”
* * *
Psalm 91:9-16
Application: And He will raise you up on eagles’ wings…
This Michael Joncas composition is based on this reading from Psalms. I cannot imagine any congregation hearing this reading and not thinking of “On Eagles’ Wings,” so if you read it, be sure you at least have a recording to play at coffee hour, if the choir doesn’t sing it as an anthem.
* * * * * * * * *
From team member Ron Love:
Psalm 91:9-10; Hebrews 5:6,10
Ministry; Compassion; Shepherding; Refuge; High Priest
Dr. Dennis Mukwege was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2018 for his campaign to end mass rape as a “weapon of war.” Mukwege opened a hospital in Bukavu, located in the eastern part of the Congo, to treat the women who are sexual abused by militant rebels. As a gynecologist he performs up to ten lifesaving operations a day on women of all ages, with some being girls as young as 3-years-old. The extreme violence of the rapes in many cases has caused their reproductive and digestive tracts to be ripped apart. In addition to this, many of the women were tortured, such as having their buttocks burned, have had foreign objects inserted into them or were shot in the genitals.
Mukwege said in an interview, “It’s not a women question; it’s a humanitarian question, and men have to take responsibility to end it. It’s not an African problem. In Bosnia, Syria, Liberia, Columbia, you have the same thing.” In a fiery speech delivered before the United Nations in 2012, Dr. Mukwege said that nations are not doing enough for what he called “an unjust war that has used violence against women and rape as a strategy of war.”
Shortly after this speech, having returned to the Congo, four armed gunmen crept into his home and took his children hostage. They then waited for Mukwege to return home from work. In the hail of bullets that followed he was able throw himself on the ground and somehow survive. After the attempt on his life he went into exile, only to return to the hospital two months later.
At the end of the interview with Jeffrey Gettleman of The New York Times, Dr. Mukwege showed the reporter the lush green hills just beyond the hospital compound. Then, in a polite and humble voice Mukwege said, “There used to be a lot of gorillas in there. But now they’ve been replaced by much more savage beasts.”
* * *
Psalm 104:1; Isaiah 53:8; Hebrews 5:7; Mark 10:43-45
Worship; Hope; Prayer; Humility; Discipleship
In September 2018 the memorial to those who died on Flight 93 was dedicated. The Flight 93 National Memorial is located in the field where Flight 93, a commuter flight from New Jersey to California, was highjacked by terrorists on September 11, 2001.
As passengers on the Boeing 757 learned of other highjacked aircraft being used as flying bombs to be crashed into buildings, they decided to act. The passengers decided to retake their airplane with the now famous words, “Let’s Roll.” As they stormed the cockpit the terrorist pilot rolled the plane, trying to get the intruders off balance. The aircraft then became inverted and crashed at 563 mph on the edge of a reclaimed strip, near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, at 10:30 a.m. The impact ignited about 100 hemlock trees. All 40 passengers were killed.
The 44-acre impact site is fenced off from the public. A 17-ton sandstone marks the exact impact site. Though at memorial plaza the Flight 93 National Memorial, called the Tower of Voices, stands proud. The 93-foot structure is shaped like a hemlock tree, and is surrounded by hemlock trees. The tower has 40 wind chimes, one for each passenger, and each has a distinctive and coordinated sound. The surrounding hemlock trees symbolize sound waves. The bells range from 5 to 10 feet long, and weigh as much as 150 pounds.
Former Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge, and the first secretary of Homeland security, said the Tower of Voices will be “an everlasting concert by our heroes.”
WORSHIP
by George Reed
Call to Worship:
Leader: Let us bless our God who is very great.
People: God is clothed with honor and majesty.
Leader: God is wrapped in light as with a garment.
People: God makes the winds to be messengers.
Leader: O God, how manifold are your works!
People: In wisdom you have made them all.
OR
Leader: Our Shepherd God calls us to gather.
People: We come at the voice of our Shepherd.
Leader: In love and gentleness God invites us.
People: With gratitude we enter into God’s presence.
Leader: As God leads us, God invites us to lead others.
People: In love we will call others to join our journey.
Hymns and Songs:
Holy God, We Praise Thy Name
UMH: 79
H82: 366
PH: 460
NNBH: 13
NCH: 276
LBW: 535
ELA: 414
W&P: 138
Renew: 53
Praise, My Soul, the King of Heaven
UMH: 66
H82: 410
PH: 478
CH: 23
LBW: 549
ELA: 864/865
W&P: 82
AMEC: 70
Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise
UMH: 103
H82: 423
PH: 263
NCH: 1
CH: 66
LBW: 526
ELA: 834
W&P: 48
AMEC: 71
STLT: 273
Renew: 46
Jesu, Jesu
UMH: 432
H82: 602
PH: 367
NCH: 498
CH: 600
ELA: 708
W&P: 273
CCB: 66
Renew: 289
Jesus Calls Us
UMH: 398
H82: 549/550
NNBH: 183
NCH: 171/172
CH: 337
LBW: 494
ELA: 696
W&P: 345
AMEC: 238
Take Up Thy Cross
UMH: 415
H82: 675
PH: 393
LBW: 398
ELA: 667
W&P: 351
AMEC: 294
Make Me a Captive, Lord
UMH: 421
PH: 378
O Master, Let Me Walk with Thee
UMH: 430
H82: 659/660
PH: 357
NNBH: 445
NCH: 503
CH: 602
LBW: 492
ELA: 818
W&P: 589
AMEC: 299
Make Me a Servant
CCB: 90
Holy Ground
CCB: 5
Music Resources Key:
UMH: United Methodist Hymnal
H82: The Hymnal 1982
PH: Presbyterian Hymnal
AAHH: African American Heritage Hymnal
NNBH: The New National Baptist Hymnal
NCH: The New Century Hymnal
CH: Chalice Hymnal
LBW: Lutheran Book of Worship
ELA: Evangelical Lutheran Worship
W&P: Worship & Praise
AMEC: African Methodist Episcopal Church Hymnal
STLT: Singing the Living Tradition
CCB: Cokesbury Chorus Book
Renew: Renew! Songs & Hymns for Blended Worship
Prayer for the Day/Collect
O God who leads your people as a gentle shepherd:
Grant us the grace to faithfully follow you
and to lead as a servant and shepherd;
through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.
OR
We praise you, O God, because you lead us as our kind shepherd. You came among us and served us. Help us to be faithful to you by always using leadership as an opportunity to serve others. Amen.
OR
We praise you, O God, because you have created our world and all that exists. You have given us a wonderful home on this planet. Help us to honor you by caring for your creation which you have entrusted to us. Amen.
Prayer of Confession
Leader: Let us confess to God and before one another our sins and especially our lust for power and disregard for your creation.
People: We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. We are hungry for power and are eager to take positions of power where ever we can. Even in our families and other personal relationships, we want to be in charge. We even want to be in charge of your earth and we have abused and scarred it. Forgive us and bring us back to our right mind where we understand servanthood and stewardship once again. Amen.
Leader: God is pleased when we look at ourselves and are honest. God is doubly pleased when we are willing to change and choose the way of life. Receive God’s grace and serve God as you serve others and God’s earth.
Prayers of the People
Glory and praise to you, O God, creator of then entire world. You created us in your image and showed us in Jesus what that should look like.
(The following paragraph may be used if a separate prayer of confession has not been used.)
We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. We are hungry for power and are eager to take positions of power where ever we can. Even in our families and other personal relationships, we want to be in charge. We even want to be in charge of your earth and we have abused and scarred it. Forgive us and bring us back to our right mind where we understand servant-hood and stewardship once again.
We give you thanks for this world and joys of life. We thank you for your presence with us day by day. You have graciously led us from darkness into light through Jesus.
(Other thanksgivings may be offered.)
We pray for all your children everywhere. We pray for those who suffer under oppression and violence. We pray for those who dwell in places that are polluted marred by our carelessness.
(Other intercessions may be offered.)
All these things we ask in the Name of our Savior Jesus Christ who taught us to pray together saying:
Our Father....Amen.
(Or if the Our Father is not used at this point in the service)
All this we ask in the Name of the Blessed and Holy Trinity. Amen.
Children’s Sermon Starter
Have a picture or some other object that someone has made for you. Talk to the children about how much you like it and appreciate that it was made for you. Tell them you need to decide what to do with it. You could hang it on the refrigerator or line the bird cage with it or use it to wrap the garbage. What would honor the person who gave it to you? Not trashing it. God made the world for us. To honor God we need to take care of it and not trash it.
CHILDREN'S SERMON
Like Tea Cups
by Dean Feldmeyer
Hebrews 5:1-10
You will need: An antique teacup.
Note: I used a teacup because I had one. Other items may be substituted so long as they fit the purpose of the text.
Say something like this:
Good morning, boys and girls.
(Holding up teacup.)
Do you all know what this is? It’s called a teacup. It belonged to my great, great, great grandmother. It’s over 100 years old and it’s very delicate. My great, great, great grandma drank her tea and her coffee from this little cup.
What else do you notice about it?
It’s pretty, yes, it is. It has flowers painted on it. But they’re kinda faded, aren’t they? In some places you can’t even see the flowers, can you?
It’s little, yes. It’s much littler than most of our coffee and tea cups and mugs, today.
It’s cracked and chipped. Yes, it is. (Point out cracks and chips.)
It’s stained, yeah. Some people might think it’s dirty but it isn’t. It’s very clean. I just washed it before I brought it over here. Those stains on the inside are from the coffee and tea that were in it.
Whenever I pick up this little teacup and look at the chips and stains and cracks I think of my grandma drinking her coffee or tea out of it. I think of her chubby little fingers holding this handle. I think of all the good things she did for our family long before I was ever born.
I think of her.
Do you know why it’s cracked and chipped and faded and stained?
Becaue people used it.
It wasn’t a decoration. Pretty as it must have been a hundred years ago when it was brand new, it wasn’t a decoration. It wasn’t supposed to be put on a shelf and admired. It was supposed to be used. So my great, great, great grandma used it. And she used all the other dishes that came with it.
She used the plates and saucers and bowls and all the other pieces. Eight of each. Thirty two pieces in all.
And do you know how many pieces are left?
Three.
Yep, only three pieces of grandma’s good china are left. This teacup, one saucer, and one little bowl.
What do you suppose happened to the other pieces? Yes, that’s right. They all got broken. Over the years they got dropped or mishandled in some way and they broke.
Maybe she should have boxed them up and never used them. That way they never would have gotten broken, right?
Well, maybe. Someone might have dropped or stepped on the whole box but they would have been a lot safer than they were being used every meal, day in and day out.
Only, that’s not what they were made for is it?
They weren’t made to be stored away somewhere in a box.
They were made to be used. So she used them. She took a chance that they might get broken and she used them to feed her family.
You know, God wants us to remember that we are kinda like this teacup. We are not meant to be wrapped up and protected so we stay pretty. We are supposed to be used to help others even if that means that we occasionally get nicked or cut or our feelings get hurt.
God doesn’t want us to stay clean and pretty all the time.
God wants us to be real, and when you’re real, sometimes you get nicked or cracked or stained in some way. But that’s okay. All those nicks and scratches and stains just say to the whole world, this person is real.
There’s another word for allowing oursleves to be nicked and scratched and stained. It’s a good word and we Christians use it a lot.
The word is: VULNERABLE.
When you’re vulnerable, you can get stained and nicked and cut and scratched. But that’s okay. That’s how we know we’re doing the work of Jesus.
That’s how we know we’ve been vulnerable, just like Jesus wants us to be.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Immediate Word, October 21, 2018, issue.
Copyright 2018 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
