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Sermon for the 10th Sunday after Pentecost 2024

First Reading                                   Genesis 9:8-17

 8God said to Noah and to his sons with him, 9“Behold, I establish my covenant with you and your offspring after you, 10and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the livestock, and every beast of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark; it is for every beast of the earth. 11I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.” 12And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: 13I have set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. 14When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, 15I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh. And the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. 16When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.” 17God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant that I have established between me and all flesh that is on the earth.”

 

Psalm                                                      Psalm 136:1-9

1Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his mercy endures forever. 2Give thanks to the God of gods, for his mercy endures forever. 3Give thanks to the Lord of lords, for his mercy endures forever. 4Who only does great wonders, for his mercy endures forever; 5Who by wisdom made the heavens, for his mercy endures forever; 6Who spread out the earth upon the waters, for his mercy endures forever; 7Who created great lights, for his mercy endures forever; 8The sun to rule the day, for his mercy endures forever; 9The moon and the stars to govern the night, for his mercy endures forever.

 

Second Reading                           Ephesians 3:14-21

 14For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, 15from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, 16that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith — that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. 20Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, 21to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.

 

Gospel                                                         Mark 6:45-56

 45Immediately {Jesus} made his disciples get into the boat and go before him to the other side, to Bethsaida, while he dismissed the crowd. 46And after he had taken leave of them, he went up on the mountain to pray. 47And when evening came, the boat was out on the sea, and he was alone on the land. 48And he saw that they were making headway painfully, for the wind was against them. And about the fourth watch of the night he came to them, walking on the sea. He meant to pass by them, 49but when they saw him walking on the sea they thought it was a ghost, and cried out, 50for they all saw him and were terrified. But immediately he spoke to them and said, “Take heart; it is I. Do not be afraid.” 51And he got into the boat with them, and the wind ceased. And they were utterly astounded, 52for they did not understand about the loaves, but their hearts were hardened. 53When they had crossed over, they came to land at Gennesaret and moored to the shore. 54And when they got out of the boat, the people immediately recognized him 55and ran about the whole region and began to bring the sick people on their beds to wherever they heard he was. 56And wherever he came, in villages, cities, or countryside, they laid the sick in the marketplaces and implored him that they might touch even the fringe of his garment. And as many as touched it were made well.

 

True Worship

In our epistle text for today, St. Paul begins by saying, “For this reason…”  It’s an interesting way to begin our reading.  It begs the question, “for what reason?”  What is the reason St. Paul bows his “knees before the Father?”  What is the reason for him to fall humbly and reverently to his knees, (in the words of the hymn, Love Divine, All Love Excelling) “lost in wonder, love, and praise?”  What reason has Paul been moved to worship?  This also begs the question, what reason or reason thrusts us to our knees in praise and adoration?

Now some will recall the conversion experience of Saul on the road to Damascus.  Jesus Himself calls out to Saul with a blinding light and asks the question, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?” (Acts 9:4).  Saul, who became the Apostle Paul, met his Savior in a one-on-one meeting.  Paul was blinded and then his sight was restored.  Our reaction to reading this account might be, it’s easy for Paul to bow his knees after such an experience.  But what about you and me?

For you and me, as far as I know, none of us have had a “Damascus Road” experience.  So, when it comes to our worship of God, how do we react when we encounter God in prayer or at other times?  As I’ve mentioned before, you and I cannot really worship God, as we should, until we know God.  We cannot even come to terms with the power, majesty, and awesomeness of God until we encounter God in a personal and intellectual way.  You and I must not only rely on the revelation of God in scripture, in prayer, through His work in our life and the lives of others, and in the grandeur of His creation, we must also encounter God intellectually.

We encounter God intellectually when we wrestle with our confessions, especially our Creeds.  Each week we confess that “I believe in God the Father Almighty, creator of heaven of earth.  I believe in Jesus Christ His only Son our Lord.  I believe in the Holy Spirit.”  In these words, we wrestle with who God is, what God has done, and is doing.  When we truly contemplate the Creeds, we cannot help but come to terms with the vastness of the power and majesty of God intellectually.  But encountering God and coming to terms with Paul’s words in our Second Reading, is more than just an intellectual exercise, it also involves our other senses as well.

Here in the sanctuary this morning, with Libby playing the piano, you the congregation singing, hearing the words of the liturgy, the sermon, tasting the body and blood of Christ in Communion, do these elements of the service not move us to worship as well?  Ask yourself, for what reason or reasons do I fall to my knees in praise and adoration?  While stationed in Alaska, I spent a good many days out in the wilds and on the rivers hunting.

During both the spring and the fall seasons, the weather is pleasant, and the mountains are full of foliage, berries, and animals.  I can recall, on one fall Moose hunt, we were on hunting along the Tanana River.  The three of us chose a nice spot to tie up the boat and we developed a plan to go in different directions and meet up in about an hour or so, to discuss what we saw.  I went to the right and about an hour later met up with Al at the predetermined location.

The routes both of us chose ended up being covered with thick alders, making the trek to the rendezvous point difficult.  Both of us had been so busy working our way along the narrow animal trails that neither of us realized that the afternoon sun was beginning to set, at least not realized until the trail suddenly opened up into a large clearing.  Before both of us, lay a large wetland area that dipped down into a small lake.

The setting sun had inflamed the hills to our left with red and orange.  Both of us, awestruck, stood there completely silent.  Al and I simply sat down on a deadfall and stared at the wondrous spectacle nature was unfolding before us.  Neither of us said a word until I quietly repeated the psalm, ”I will lift up my eyes to the hills from whence comes my help.  My help is in the name of the Lord” (Psalm 121:1-2).  All Al could seem to say for a long time was amen.

Both of us just sat there, on our knees as it were, dumbfounded and awestruck, by the “riches of His glory.”  For one, wonderful, awe-filled moment, our puny little modern minds comprehended what is “the breadth and length and height and depth” of the majesty of God.  Together, in our own way, we both gave thanks and worshipped the creator of all.  Today, all I can say when I think of such times is, God be praised for such amazing reasons to worship.  We must not only encounter the majesty and unlimited power of God intellectually, we must also encounter God with our senses.

The wonder of God’s amazing creation was my rationale for worship, my occasion to bend my knees before the Father, but what was Paul’s reason here in Ephesians?  “For this reason, I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name…”  Again, what was St. Paul’s reason for worship?  If you were to turn back a page or so in Ephesians, you’d find Paul’s reason.  In last week’s reading from the second chapter of Ephesians, Paul wrote, “For he is our peace, who has made us both one, and has broken down the dividing wall of hostility,…that he might create in himself one new humanity in place of two, so making peace,…” (vss. 14-16).  This is yet another reason Paul wrote the opening words to our Second Reading for today.

Paul had been dealing with the tough problem of divisions, walls within the church of Ephesus, specifically divisions between the Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians.  He says that the centuries of ancient hostility between the two have now become peace because Christ has “broken down the dividing wall of hostility.”  Paul reminds them, and us, that, in the beginning, God created “every family in heaven and on earth” (Eph. 3:14).  When we were first created, there were no walls, no divisions between us.  Then we grew up and as we grew, so did our differences, so did the walls between us.

Watch a group of preschoolers playing on the playground, observe that they don’t seem to notice differences of skin color, or class, or accent.  It reminds us of what it was like in our beginning, at creation, the way we were, but sadly, are not now.  And for these early Christians, the peacefulness and unity in the church was like a return to the first, fresh days of creation when there were no walls, no labels, no divisions due to race, or class, or nation and in our childlike innocence we were one.

There they sat in church, women who in that day, in that part of the world, were second, even third, class citizens, now were taking on leadership roles in the church, regarded as equally gifted by the spirit.  The poor too were given a status in the congregation they’d never known in their life.  Jews, Gentiles, together.  Slave and free together.  St. Paul says he falls to his knees in wonder that such a fresh new day has dawned for these Jews and Gentiles in the church in Ephesus.  Paul doesn’t say that God will break down these walls someday or that God ought to heal our divisions.  Christ has already done this.  From the cross Jesus reached out and embraced all, forgave all, and loved all.  That was done by God.

What has yet to be done is our full comprehension of what Christ has done.  So, Paul prays for us, that one day we will get it into our heads, and into our hearts, just how great is the “breadth and length and height and depth” of the “love of Christ.”  Then we’ll be able to worship, to bend our knees before God who has made all things new, all things one, even us.

We’ve gathered here this morning to worship.  Yet alas, many come as if nothing has happened, as if all the old boundaries, the old labels, the old divisions and distinctions, are still in place.  Someone has, most likely, brought a grudge from a long time ago, an affront suffered at the hands of a friend or relative, a grudge which has kept them away from social gatherings for many years.  Somebody else may be seething, eaten up with resentment, for one who was once a friend because that person succeeded in a way that they did not.  Secret, unseen, yet rigidly enforced, deeply cherished boundaries, walls have been erected which divide.

While at my internship church, there was a member who had, years before I got there, possibly even a few years before I was even born, wanted a buy piece of property.   However, his best friend beat him to the draw, got the land, and this man had never forgiven him for it.  The gap between them cut right through the middle of their small community and even had an impact on the congregation.  At his funeral, my supervising pastor whispered to me, “it’s sad, he took that rift, that resentment with him to his grave.”  Then, after a brief moment, he continued, “They usually do, we get over some of our loves, but hardly ever do we get over our hates.  It’s tragic how often people will take them to the grave.”

Is it possible that this is the reason that our hymn singing is a bit off key, our praise a bit hollow, our prayers not truly earnest, our passing of the peace coolly polite?  Paul might say, we’re not yet ready to worship, caught as we are in the narrow confines of the old age.  We’re not yet mature enough to praise a God as the One whose love is so broad and long, high and deep, as the love of Christ.  May the music not be so loud, that the hymns will be familiar, so that when we pray, we might have the “power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge,” so that each of us might experience the “the fullness of God.”

Some time ago, I read a Facebook post from an old Seminary classmate.  To tell you the truth, when I saw the post, I had to think a minute to even remember them.  I recalled him as a quiet, rather shy, student that I took a preaching class with.  He shared in his post that for the past 15 years, he had been bearing great resentment toward many of the other students.  He shared that the source of his resentment came from remarks made, and criticisms offered of his sermons, which cut him very deeply.  He shared that these comments cut so deeply that he had considered leaving the ministry.  He had gone home from that class tormented and enraged on more than one occasion.  He shared that he hated some of the members of the class.

In the next paragraph, he said that God had spoken to him about his hatred for his fellow students.  He wrote that he had prayed to God for the strength to forgive us, to love us, and that God had given him that gift.  He posted, asking for our forgiveness, even though none of us knew, until that post, that we had anything to be forgiven for, or for which to forgive him.  He asked to renew our friendship, and to renew our relationship.

Upon further reflection, I began to realize how much my comments must have hurt him, even though they were unintentional, (realizing that unintentional hurts, hurt just as bad as intentional ones), and I recalled how deeply I may have offended him, of how much anger and pain had to be overcome in his soul, for him to forgive us, I….I bent my knees before a God powerful enough, and loving enough, to work such a wonder.  I asked for forgiveness and marveled at the amazing grace of God.  For those few moments I marveled at the greatness of God, and I bowed my head in thanks.

We’ve all gathered here to pray, to sing, to worship, and give praise on this Sunday morning.  Some of you have made a special effort to be here, and some of you may just be returning from a time away.  Hopefully we’ve all come to be “lost in wonder, love and praise.”  However, Libby’s amazing playing cannot make us praise, nor can the fact that we’re gathered here in this Sanctuary be the basis of true Christian worship.  No, true Christian worship, worship that comes from the depths of our souls, only comes when we truly comprehend who God truly is, all that God has done, and is doing all around us, and when all the barriers of hatred, malice, or resentment, are broken down.  Then it’ll be just like the first days of creation, and we reach out and are one with one another.  That is the “fullness of God, that is comprehension of the breadth and length and height and depth” of “the love of Christ” which enables us truly to praise.

So, I pray that each of us, will take the time to ponder the words we confess in our Creeds, and will, as St. Peter instructs, “rid ourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind (I Peter 2:1).  When we do, God will give us the “power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”

Amen

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