For the week of February 16 – 6th Sunday after Epiphany
Morning Prayer: Compassionate God, we recognize that our world is a broken place, hurt by poverty, famine, and disease. We admit that sometimes we make the world a broken place, tolerating prejudice, conflict, and self-interest. We confess that our hearts also suffer with anger, resentment, and jealousy.
Renew us in Your love, O God, and heal us with the comfort of Your abundant love. Awaken us to the role we can play in healing Your creation. Strengthen us through the power of the Holy Spirit to hear Your word and move forward in faith. Amen. Written by Gill Le Fevre. (Discipleship Ministries)
Opening Hymn: #334 Sweet, Sweet Spirit
There’s a sweet, sweet Spirit in this place, and I know that it’s the Spirit of the Lord;
there are sweet expressions on each face, and I know they feel the presence of the Lord.
Sweet Holy Spirit, sweet heavenly Dove, stay right here with us, filling us with Your love;
and for these blessings we life our hearts in praise;
without a doubt we’ll know that we have been revived when we shall leave this place.
Psalm 1:1-2, 5-6 (CEB)
1 The truly happy person
doesn’t follow wicked advice,
doesn’t stand on the road of sinners,
and doesn’t sit with the disrespectful.
2 Instead of doing those things,
these persons love the Lord’s Instruction,
and they recite God’s Instruction day and night!
5 And that’s why the wicked will have no standing in the court of justice—
neither will sinners
in the assembly of the righteous.
6 The Lord is intimately acquainted
with the way of the righteous,
but the way of the wicked is destroyed.
Prayers of Intercession: Thank You, Lord, for hearing our prayers for those dear to our hearts. We now pray as You have taught us: Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us. Lead us, not into temptation but deliver us from evil. For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.
Offering spotlight: We will shine our offering spotlight on UMCOR for 3 weeks. This week the focus is on UMCOR’s work in the United States with Disaster Response.
The United Methodist Committee on Relief U.S. Disaster Response (UMCOR USDR) seeks to alleviate suffering caused by disasters that strike within the United States and its territories. With a “communities own their recoveries” philosophy, UMCOR supports local efforts to accomplish immediate relief and long-term recovery while providing for volunteers to offer compassionate ministry in the aftermath of disasters. UMCOR journeys with affected communities throughout a disaster’s cycle, including disaster preparedness, relief, response, recovery and mitigation.
Key activities for response teams are supplying survivors with food, water, shelter and help with mucking out and cleaning up. UMCOR offers emergency financial assistance.
For disasters that require long-term strategies, UMCOR provides expertise, grants and training, such as disaster case management, materials and construction management, volunteer management and psychosocial support for survivors.
UMCOR is responding to disasters every day. Recent and continuing needs include Wildfires in California, Hurricane Helene, Hurricane Ernesto, Northwest Wildfires, Hurricane Debby, Hurricane Beryl, Winter storms and tornadoes, Tornado recovery in Oklahoma, Flood and tornado recovery in Missouri, Flood and tornado recovery in North Georgia.
Offering prayer: Gracious God, who blesses us in our brokenness and rejoices with us in our joy, we bring these gifts as an offering of hope and love. May they be used to heal the hurting, feed the hungry, and welcome the weary. Help us to be a community that reflects Your kingdom, where all find acceptance and grace. In Jesus’ name, we pray. Amen. (Discipleship Ministries)
Hymn of preparation: #467 Trust and Obey
- When we walk with the Lord in the light of His word, what a glory He sheds on our way!
While we do His good will, He abides with us still, and with all who will trust and obey.
Refrain: Trust and obey, for there's no other way to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey.
- Not a burden we bear, not a sorrow we share, but our toil He doth richly repay;
not a grief or a loss, not a frown or a cross, but is blest if we trust and obey. (Refrain) - But we never can prove the delights of His love until all on the altar we lay;
for the favor He shows, for the joy He bestows, are for them who will trust and obey. (Refrain) - Then in fellowship sweet we will sit at His feet, or we'll walk by His side in the way;
what He says we will do, where He sends we will go; never fear, only trust and obey. (Refrain)
Scripture: Luke 6:17-26 (NRSV)
Jesus Teaches and Heals
17 He came down with them and stood on a level place with a great crowd of His disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea, Jerusalem, and the coast of Tyre and Sidon. 18 They had come to hear Him and to be healed of their diseases, and those who were troubled with unclean spirits were cured. 19 And everyone in the crowd was trying to touch Him, for power came out from Him and healed all of them.
Blessings and Woes
20 Then He looked up at His disciples and said:
“Blessed are you who are poor,
for yours is the kingdom of God.
21 “Blessed are you who are hungry now,
for you will be filled.
“Blessed are you who weep now,
for you will laugh.
22 “Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man. 23 Rejoice on that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven, for that is how their ancestors treated the prophets.
24 “But woe to you who are rich,
for you have received your consolation.
25 “Woe to you who are full now,
for you will be hungry.
“Woe to you who are laughing now,
for you will mourn and weep.
26 “Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is how their ancestors treated the false prophets.
Message: Pastor Becky
First things first, before we begin to look at blessedness and woes, we have to see what Jesus did first. He plans to teach, to give a sound foundation for the message of the good news and we are going to work through the Sermon on the Plain this week and next. But we need to see first that before Jesus teaches, He heals. Jesus knows that He must heal in order for people to hear His teaching.
We understand the order, logically it makes sense to us. You can’t learn when you are distracted and you also can’t help another until you are cared for.
If you have ever flown on an airplane, the flight attendant gives a safety speech. They will point out the emergency exits, tell you how your seat is also a flotation device (not comforting) and before they are done they come to the instruction that can baffle us. They will tell us that if the cabin should lose air pressure, masks will come down from the ceiling. It is important to put your mask on first and then place a mask on your child. You, then your child. The order defies a parent’s nature. As a parent, you want to help your child first; in order to help your child, you first must be wearing the mask. First things first.
Maybe this example is more relatable: You aren’t you when you are hungry. We know what it is like to be hangry. That point past “I could eat” to “I have to eat something!” Have you ever tried to be productive in a hangry state? You can’t be productive. All of your attention and all of your thoughts go toward figuring out when and what you are going to eat. You notice every ache and pain in your body and your mind begins to tally every wrong every perpetrated upon by your spouse, sibling, or co-worker. Everything gets blown out of proportion when we are hangry. We become someone different than we usually are.
Pain does the same thing. It distorts our reality. It makes simple tasks hard. Pain destroys our mental health and overall well being. It makes us believe the worst in others and about ourselves.
This is why Jesus had to perform healings before He could teach. The crowd wasn’t going to hear anything He said until their immediate need was met. That need was to be made whole, to be relieved of what was destroying them. Jesus healed diseases and those who were troubled by unclean spirits were cured. The crowd was trying to touch Him because power was coming out of Him.
Jesus made sick people well. The highest calling of the Church is to make sick people well, offering healing in all forms.
Because until the distraction is gone, there can’t be focus on the teachings. Without some healing the teachings seem to be, can be, and are counter intuitive to what we think. We tend to think about ourselves and Jeus is pointing us to others – to them – to those who we don’t consider as us. Yet the “them” are among us, but we aren’t seeing where we each are in need of healing, so to illuminate the “them” in us, Jesus starts with the blessings and the woes.
“Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the Kingdom of God.”
“Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled.”
“Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh.”
“Woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation.”
“Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry.”
“Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep.”
These are not separate groups, this isn’t the rich vs the poor, the fed vs the unfed, or the happy vs the sad. This is the outline of the human condition. These are the equalizers. Everyone experiences these conditions at one time or another. We can identify times in our lives where we were each of these. We hold on to the hope that our mourning will turn to joy, that our emptiness will yield to fullness and that where we are lacking, soon we will be overflowing. None of us goes untouched by these equalizers that remind us of our humanness. It is what we do and how we react to each of these conditions in our lives and the lives of others that reveals our level of healing.
Do we ignore each other’s pain and diminish them or do we stay with them, supporting and encouraging them. Ever, always keeping our eyes focused on healing? How do we respond when it is happening to us in our lives? How do we respond when it is “me” who is mourning, poor, or hungry? We either announce it or hide it, right? And in polite society, we usually hide our humanness because who wants to appear broken and then become the fodder of gossip? When what we really need is to be the subject of heart felt, knee numbing prayer.
We have to become more comfortable with healing and not just the “got better” after an illness. We need to become warriors for healing, expectant receivers of full body, soul and mind healing. We know we don’t necessarily enjoy seeing someone healed, because it makes us uncomfortable about what we haven’t received in healing or it intensifies what we won’t release in order to be healed.
So what we have before us, what Jesus is trying to impress upon us, is that first we have to be healed or at the very least on the road to healing. This healing is individual and corporate as a Body of Christ together.
Together, we put in place ways for folks to be healed and we have done some of this work. We host AA/Al-Anon. We have an active prayer chain to lift folks up to God as we come into agreement in prayer together. We espouse and align with organizations whose mission is to bring healing, like EOS and Dwell. We host fellowship times.
Individually, we have active prayer and study time. We listen to people, so we can hear the subtle ways they are in need of healing. We engage others to include them, yet we can stretch ourselves from inviting to deliberately coordinating dedicated time with another. This is the art of presence, being present not for what we can receive, but what we can offer another. It is the gift of time.
The most important thing we have to do individually and collectively is to realize we need healing ourselves. In making this admission, we allow others to seek their healing as we heal with them. All of this is the manifestation of the Kingdom of God, which Jesus has promised to all of us. Amen
Closing Hymn: #733 Marching to Zion
- Come, we that love the Lord, and let our joys be known;
Join in a song with sweet accord, join in a song with sweet accord
And thus surround the throne, and thus surround the throne.
Refrain: We’re marching to Zion, beautiful, beautiful Zion;
We’re marching upward to Zion, the beautiful city of God.
- Let those refuse to sing who never knew our God;
But children of the heavenly King, but children of the heavenly King
May speak their joys abroad, may speak their joys abroad.
- The hill of Zion yields a thousand sacred sweets
Before we reach the heavenly fields, before we reach the heavenly fields,
Or walk the golden streets, or walk the golden streets.
- Then let our songs abound, and every tear be dry;
We’re marching through Emmanuel’s ground, we’re marching through Emmanuel’s ground,
To fairer worlds on high, to fairer worlds on high.
The blessing: May the Lord bless you and keep you and make His face shine upon you this week.
