September 22nd, 2002
Whether we come and labour hard for years, or whether we are the newcomers of the eleventh hour, we shall all receive what is right and what God has promised us. God meets us in our despair and we are invited to join with God in work, prayer, and praise.
If you would like to stay seated for any or all of the “standing” parts of the service, please feel free to do so.
Prelude “Contemplation” by Gaul
A time of silent preparation—Lighting the Christ Candle
Call to Worship (Responsive)
One: God has called us all here:
All: God has called us,
One: no matter who we are, or when we arrived, we all belong.
All: We are all God’s people, we all belong, let us worship God together.
One: Let us continue to pray together
All: God of unfailing hope and promise, your supporting love is ever with us. Like a mother eagle carrying her young, you carry us through the joys and struggles of life. We honour you. Uniting our voices in prayer and praise, we commit ourselves to you. Bless us and guide us. We offer this prayer in the name of Christ. Amen.
Hymn #179 “Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Give Thanks”
Time with the Young & the young at heart
The Sunday School & Youth leave for their classes.
We Remain in God’s Presence Through Confession
God of overflowing grace, help us. When we think we are worthless, remind us of our value. When we think others are worthless, remind us of their value. God of overflowing grace, help us. Help us to accept the gifts you give us, and to offer them for your glory. Each one of us is special and unique and full of talents and gifts to share. Yet we do not always recognize gift in ourselves, or in others. Help us accept each person’s worth as your children and not to judge people by their work or their wealth. Help us to remember that you love the first and the last and all those in between. Help us to share the riches of your world with one another, freely and fairly… (Silent Confession)
Assurance of Pardon (One)
Know that God showers grace upon all people – the first and the last, and all those in between. So be assured that, whenever you turn to God, you are given a full share of the grace that makes us new again. Thanks be to God! Amen.
Biblical Notes
The Manna and the Quails
The Workers in the Vineyard (Read from the New Revised Standard Version)
One: This is the Good News of Jesus Christ
Hymn #274 “Your Hand, O God, Has Guided”
Let's Not Be Afraid To Ask
Sometimes it's hard to ask. Remember asking for a first date or for a raise? Older folk detest asking for help, and they say that most men resist asking for directions!
Sometimes it seems that the whole world is asking. Canvassers come to the door, letters appear in our mail, TV ads assail us with pictures of starving children, and the comfort of our sanctuaries is disturbed by news of rising costs and lower contributions.
It's a fact that we all like to be independent, but the church of Christ is dependent on us--on you and me. We love our church, we use our church, and the church needs us. The church needs our money!
Why then, is it so hard for us to come right out and say things like "we need to increase contributions to both local and Mission and Service by 2 per cent (or 3, or 5), to meet our needs and to support the outreach work of our church"? Why is it difficult to ask for money for the church's mission in Canada and abroad, the church's administrative costs, or any of the things that the Mission and Service Fund does--in our name, and in the name of Christ?
Here it is, folks: if you give regularly to M&S please increase the amount. If you do not contribute to the M&S Fund, please fill in both sides of your church envelope, especially the side marked Mission and Service Fund. Give faithfully, give joyfully! This is today's ask.
We Respond In Giving And Gratitude
Offertory “Nur Mit Jesu!” by Berge
Open our hearts and open our hands, we pray, and teach us to live more fully and give more generously, that your witness and your work might come to its full flowering, in the name of Jesus. Amen.
Hymn #321 “Maker, in Whom We Live”
Commissioning
Let us go into the world trusting that whatever we offer of work or witness, time or talent is received, valued, blessed, and multiplied by God’s grace.
Choral Amen
#298 “When You Walk From Here”
When you walk from here, when you walk from here.
Walk with justice, walk with mercy, and with God’s humble care.
Postlude “Marche Romaine” arr, Ellis
The Life And Work Of The Congregation
Congratulations go out to Sheldon & Renee Alcock who were married on July 25th at Akmul, Mexico.
Flowers are placed in the Sanctuary this morning
by
Bertha Eliasson
in loving memory of her husband,
Nick Eliasson
South Alberta Presbytery
Your prayers this week are requested for Rolling Hills Pastoral Charge.
Thought For Today
Those who try to do something and fail are infinitely better than those who try nothing and succeed.
by Lloyd Jones
“Meeting God, Even Through Complaint”
Jack Spong, when he was here in April, spoke about loving wastefully…that’s what this parable of the kingdom of God is all about … God shows us amazing love…wasteful love and what do we do?
Sometimes for sure we complain. Of course we come by it honestly…our ancestors grumbled and complained from the moment they left the security of Egypt. More than a thousand years later the gospel story of a generous landowner records in Greek, “is your eye evil because I am good?” or to phrase that after our English translation, “are you envious because I am generous?” People can find just about anything to grumble about!
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Wednesday night past, I was privileged to begin another adult confirmation time…10 of us gathered and I was again encouraged about the amazing integrity of folks prepared to wrestle with matters of faith and to consider how and if they can live with that integrity in the context of the church.
Let me give you an example of the kind of integrity that I’m speaking about. A common thread of one of our discussions considered what it means to be a part of a community who understands itself to be church. As a group of seekers and questors we spoke about the disappointment that we sometimes experience in the context of church when “church people” don’t behave as we might expect them to.
I think everyone has had this experience. Folks whom you expect to have a clear understanding of God and of godly action, suddenly surprise with a word of ridicule or a word of prejudice, a word of bigotry, a word of malice toward another and you find yourself thinking if this is the church then I don’t want to have any part of it.
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On that subject, a good discussion ensued and someone floated the idea that what we often cite as the basis for such disappointment could simply be identified as human nature. In fact, most behaviour, we mused, has more to do with simple human behaviour than with church behaviour or non church behaviour.
I think that is true…I think that most people, like our Israelite ancestors, are more prone to complain and grumble than we are to celebrate the wonders of life. Does that make it right? Should we aim low and be satisfied with the lowest common denominator? Or should we aim higher and aspire to be something other the picture of grumbling we meet in some of the stories of our faith?
Well, of course the stories of Jesus… the stories of wasteful loving …invite us to shoot high—to be unsatisfied with the kind of human behaviour that seeks the low ground and instead to aspire to be more than we may presently be and to see more of God’s grace than we may readily see in others.
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In the ancient world, cities were walled and gated. In times of war the gates were heavily guarded and sealed. In times of peace the gates would be open during the day and the elders, “men of course” in those times and cultures, would sit near the open gates and visit the world vicariously through the stories of the travellers that would happen by.
On one such occasion a traveller approached an old man sitting near the gate and asked, “so, what are the people like here in your city?” The old man thought for a moment and then asked the traveller what the people were like in the city that he had set out from. The traveller responded by saying they were mean and nasty, greedy and self-serving, not at all friendly or charitable.
That’s too bad replied the old man, I would like to be able to give you different news but I’m afraid that folks here are pretty much the same as the folks you just left.
Without saying too much more the traveller turned and left the gates of that city to continue on his journey.
City gates are busy places and it wasn’t very long at all before another traveller happened by and struck up a conversation with the old man. In short order the question was again raised, “so, what are the people like here in your city?” Again the old man asked the traveller, “What are the people like in the city that you set out from?”
The traveller responded by saying they were fun loving, caring and compassionate, in fact he said, you really couldn’t ask for anyone any better.
Well, said the old man, “you are in luck. The people of this city are exactly like that and I’m sure you are going to love them.”
A young man, who had gathered by the gate hoping to find work for the day had overheard the two conversations that the old man had just had and he asked, “why did you tell the first traveller our city was so bad and then tell this other traveller our city is so wonderful?”
The old man, without thinking at all said, “young man, it has been my experience that you will find in your travels pretty much what you expect to find. If you expect to find the worst in people you will find that. If you expect to find the best in people, you will find that as well.”
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There is no question that people are people no matter where you go. To hope that because someone attends church they are somehow better than someone who doesn’t may not be a very realistic expectation. On the other hand to expect that a church goer is open to the challenge to be more than we now are and to be willing to be brought along on that journey in light of God’s wasteful love is completely within the realm of expectation.
Connecting with the teachings of Christ and with others who connect with those teachings doesn’t make us better in and of itself…instead, that connection should make us willing to aspire to view life from a higher place… we may fall and we may grumble and we may complain from time to time but the God who loves wastefully invites us to love wastefully every time we meet another person.
Is loving wastefully a good way to be disappointed? Perhaps it is. But not doing so is to cut yourself off from blessing after blessing that you can only meet in others.
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My life is always impacted by the people I meet who seek the good in others in word and deed. Yes they may be few and far between but they always leave me smiling and encouraged that the gospel Jesus died to uphold was not wasted. Instead it has become the source of wasteful love.
The wonder of the God that Jesus knew and the God that Jesus invites us to know is that even in the moments of grumbling or disenchanted thinking; God is there to offer wasteful love. If our God is vengeful and nasty, as some are wont to describe God, than it should surprise us not at all that we are like that too.
Jesus invited us to discover the God of wasteful loving, even in the midst of our complaint…and calls us to be open to the possibility of joyful living in the midst of life’s disappointments. It was an invitation to meet and greet the God of abundant life right where we are.
Jesus’ parables invite us to seek the higher ground …even so, Jesus didn’t reject folks who didn’t seek that ground…he only pointed the way to a more celebrated life …a more compassionate life, a life with the greater rewards that can come only from wasteful loving.
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A Jewish rabbi once invited some guests to his house for what was promised to be “a meal worthy of Paradise.” The guests gathered on the appointed evening with great anticipation.
A meal worthy of Paradise! What delights would they enjoy? They gathered in the dining room around an elegantly set table. A servant brought Rabbi Isaac a roll, over which he pronounced the traditional blessing. The servant then set a bowl of soup before Rabbi Isaac but brought none for the guests.
The rabbi delighted over the soup, puzzling his already befuddled guests.
Why were they not being served?
The same continued over two more courses of food: Rabbi Isaac was served, would eat and exclaim over the gustatory delights, yet the guests themselves received not a morsel.
Finally one guest blurted out, “Reb Isaac! What is going on? You promised a meal worthy of Paradise yet you alone are eating while we receive nothing!”
The rebbe smiled and replied, “A meal worthy of Paradise indeed. What did you think it would be? Is Paradise somewhere one goes for its fine food and wine? No. Paradise is a place where people love each other enough to take pleasure in another person’s happiness.
Paradise is any place where you can see your neighbor being successful and not envy him.
And if we have all learned that lesson, now I will have your dinner brought out to you.” (Original source for story: Harold Kushner, How Good Do We Have to Be? New York: Little Brown Co., 1996, pp. 139-40).
We are all invited to dine on the experience of God’s wasteful love…quail and manna are being served to us all the time. In gratitude we can embrace the opportunities or we can miss seeing them through the lenses of our grumbling. As always with God, the choice on what we find—is our choice, but never outside God’s love. Amen.