For the week of February 23 – 7th Sunday after Epiphany
Morning Prayer: O God, You spoke Your word and revealed Your good news in Jesus, the Christ. Fill all creation with that word again, so that by proclaiming Your joyful promises to all nations and singing of Your glorious hope to all peoples, we may become one living body, Your incarnate presence on the earth. Amen. (Lectionary prayers)
Opening Hymn: #98 To God Be the Glory
- To God be the glory, great things He hath done!
So loved He the world that He gave us His Son,
who yielded His life an atonement for sin, and opened the lifegate that all may go in.
Refrain: Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, let the earth hear His voice!
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, let the people rejoice!
O come to the Father thru Jesus the Son,
and give Him the glory, great things He hath done!
- O perfect redemption, the purchase of blood, to every believer the promise of God;
the vilest offender who truly believes, that moment from Jesus a pardon receives. (Refrain) - Great things He hath taught us, great things He hath done,
and great our rejoicing thru Jesus the Son;
but purer, and higher, and greater will be our wonder, our transport, when Jesus we see.
(Refrain)
Psalm 37:3-7 (CEB)
3 Trust the Lord and do good;
live in the land, and farm faithfulness.
4 Enjoy the Lord,
and He will give what your heart asks.
5 Commit your way to the Lord!
Trust Him! He will act
6 and will make your righteousness shine like the dawn,
your justice like high noon.
7 Be still before the Lord,
and wait for Him.
Don’t get upset when someone gets ahead—
someone who invents evil schemes.
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: UMCOR: Alleviating suffering all over the world
The United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR), a unit of Global Ministries, is a humanitarian organization that helps alleviate human suffering, one of the two main goals of Global Ministries. Originally founded in 1940 in response to displaced and vulnerable populations in the wake of World War II, UMCOR assists the most vulnerable people affected by crisis or chronic needs without regard to their race, religion or status. UMCOR’s work is carried out by providing relief and assistance in response to natural and human-made disasters and supporting programs in the areas of migration, health, food security and environmental sustainability.
Current areas include: war-torn Congo, typhoon clean up and recovery in The Philippians, hurricane clean up and recovery in the Caribbean.
Offering prayer: Merciful God, who calls us to love beyond measure, we offer these gifts as a sign of our commitment to Your teachings. Help us love our enemies, do good to those who hate us, and bless those who curse us. May our offerings bring healing and hope, reflecting Your boundless grace in our community. In Jesus' name, we pray. Amen. (Discipleship Ministries)
Hymn of Preparation: #549 Where Charity and Love Prevail
- Where charity and love prevail, there God is ever found;
brought here together by Christ's love, by love we are thus bound. - With grateful joy and holy fear true charity we learn;
let us with heart and mind and strength now love Christ in return. - Forgive we now each other's faults as we our faults confess;
and let us love each other well in Christian holiness. - Let strife among us be unknown, let all contention cease;
Be Christ the glory that we seek, be ours His holy peace. - Let us recall that in our midst dwells God’s begotten Son;
as members of His body joined, we are in Him made one. - Love can exclude no race or creed if honored be God’s name;
Our common life embraces all whose Maker is the same.
Scripture: Luke 6:27-38 (CEB)
27 “But I say to you who are willing to hear: Love your enemies. Do good to those who hate you. 28 Bless those who curse you. Pray for those who mistreat you. 29 If someone slaps you on the cheek, offer the other one as well. If someone takes your coat, don’t withhold your shirt either. 30 Give to everyone who asks and don’t demand your things back from those who take them. 31 Treat people in the same way that you want them to treat you.
32 “If you love those who love you, why should you be commended? Even sinners love those who love them. 33 If you do good to those who do good to you, why should you be commended? Even sinners do that. 34 If you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, why should you be commended? Even sinners lend to sinners expecting to be paid back in full. 35 Instead, love your enemies, do good, and lend expecting nothing in return. If you do, you will have a great reward. You will be acting the way children of the Most High act, for He is kind to ungrateful and wicked people. 36 Be compassionate just as your Father is compassionate.
37 “Don’t judge, and you won’t be judged. Don’t condemn, and you won’t be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. 38 Give, and it will be given to you. A good portion—packed down, firmly shaken, and overflowing—will fall into your lap. The portion you give will determine the portion you receive in return.”
Message: Pastor Becky
As promised, we are continuing with Jesus’s Sermon on the Plain.
Jesus begins His ministry with healing and that is the Church’s highest calling. The Church is to be a healer in a broken world, and as part of the Church, each of us are to be extending healing and working on our own healing. It is not an either/or, but an and. We offer healing and receive healing. Our healing is vital to others’ healing.
If we are healing or are healed, we won’t act out of our hurt. We will act from a place of healing. We know what it feels like to be hurt, so we don’t want to hurt others. This is truly a measure of fruit. We can tell how far someone is on their healing journey based on how they treat other people. The fruit or lack thereof is evident. You can’t fake healing.
Jesus offers healing. He does this to restore our relationship with God. It is in His death and resurrection, the chasm between us and God is gapped. Jesus offers healing in how we see ourselves. Jesus identifies our worth in that He takes on the sins that condemn us. He does this on the cross and He does it through His teachings as He reveals God’s plan of God’s Kingdom.
All our healing is rooted in love. God’s love of us and our love as we return that love to God. This return of love is worship. We are offering back to God what we have been given. Our lives as we live them are worship. How we interact with each other is an offering to God. Are we offering God love?
God knows our broken places. God knows the parts of ourselves that need healing. Yet, in the depth of our pain, in the midst of our suffering, Jesus offers us this teaching for today for our healing.
Love your enemies. Can we be honest with each other and ourselves for a minute? Do you really have enemies? Is there someone in your life whose every waking moment is spent plotting on you? Realistically, no. Is anyone here fearing going out into the parking lot because there is someone lying in wait for you to appear? No, or you would have stayed home. Now, I take seriously that stalkers are real and domestic violence is a reality in our society, yet you have come out into public. You must feel some level of safety.
Is your life or some aspect of your life in danger from an enemy OR is it possible, we have turned someone into an enemy in our thinking who actually isn’t? I mean, folks you are angry with, don’t even know it. The grudges and ill will we carry against another aren’t affecting them. Unless another person has come up to you and said directly into your face ”I am your sworn enemy.” They aren’t. Yet in our mind, they are. The only way for us to be healed and to offer healing against our condition is to love our enemies – real and imagined.
The change has to come from us. Changing our perspective from hate to love. Will they become your best friend overnight? Probably not. The good news is that isn’t the goal. Changing another isn’t our work. Now allowing ourselves to be changed with the power of the Holy Spirit … that is our work. Our change won’t necessarily come overnight, but neither does all our healing. It comes in pieces. Our change looks like a pleasantry offer here and a smile there, until we retrain our heart to offer love. How we interact with one another is worship.
Jesus gives us cues on what begins our transformation. It is to bless and pray for those who curse and mistreat us. All the while, we must realize, we are not responsible for how someone treats us, we are only responsible for how we treat others. How we interact with others is worship. Thus we have the command to treat people how we want to be treated. The great: Do onto others as we want done to us. We don’t get to decide who is worthy of a smile, an encouraging word or a hug. Think about how you want to be treated. If you won’t like it done to you, don’t do it.
Don’t judge and don't condemn. Forgive and you’ll be forgiven. You can judge situations or actions, but you don’t get to write people off. We have no knowledge of their soul or their path of salvation.
We can get so hung up on things that don’t matter and when we spend our time fixating on another’s sins, we miss our own sinfulness. Our sinfulness is what we are accountable to God for, the thing that binds us up and keeps us from the healing we all need.
Yet, if we can offer another companionship, encouragement as they struggle with repentance and healing, do that. This is the return of God’s love, being vulnerable and available to be used as a conduit of God’s love.
That is how we know love, because God loved us first. God offers us love. Jesus teaches us love. We are to love and share it. Honestly, we can’t out love God. We can be trusted with love. Hate – hate may be our only enemy.
Closing Hymn: #408 The Gift of Love
- Though I may speak with bravest fire, and have the gift to all inspire,
And have not love, my words are vain, as sounding brass, and hopeless gain.
- Though I may give all I possess, and striving so my love profess,
But not be given by love within, the profit soon turns strangely thin.
- Come, Spirit, come, and hearts control, our spirits long to be made whole.
Let inward love guide every deed; by this we worship, and are freed.
The blessing: May the Lord bless you and keep you and make His face shine upon you this week.
