Home Worship for the week of February 8
Morning Prayer: O God of light, Your searching Spirit reveals and illumines Your presence in creation. Shine Your radiant holiness into our lives, that we may offer our hands and hearts to Your work: to heal and shelter, to feed and clothe, to break every yoke and silence evil tongues. Amen. (Lectionary Prayers)
Opening Hymn: #144 This Is my Father’s World
- This is my Father's world, and to my listening ears
all nature sings, and round me rings the music of the spheres.
This is my Father's world: I rest me in the thought
of rocks and trees, of skies and seas; His hand the wonders wrought. - This is my Father's world, the birds their carols raise,
the morning light, the lily white, declare their maker's praise.
This is my Father's world: He shines in all that's fair;
in the rustling grass I hear Him pass; He speaks to me everywhere. - This is my Father's world. O let me ne'er forget
that though the wrong seems oft so strong, God is the ruler yet.
This is my Father's world: why should my heart be sad?
The Lord is King; let the heavens ring! God reigns; let the earth be glad!
Old Testament Lesson: Isaiah 58:1-12
58 Shout loudly; don’t hold back;
raise your voice like a trumpet!
Announce to my people their crime,
to the house of Jacob their sins.
2 They seek me day after day,
desiring knowledge of my ways
like a nation that acted righteously,
that didn’t abandon their God.
They ask me for righteous judgments,
wanting to be close to God.
3 “Why do we fast and you don’t see;
why afflict ourselves and you don’t notice?”
Yet on your fast day you do whatever you want,
and oppress all your workers.
4 You quarrel and brawl, and then you fast;
you hit each other violently with your fists.
You shouldn’t fast as you are doing today
if you want to make your voice heard on high.
5 Is this the kind of fast I choose,
a day of self-affliction,
of bending one’s head like a reed
and of lying down in mourning clothing and ashes?
Is this what you call a fast,
a day acceptable to the Lord?
6 Isn’t this the fast I choose:
releasing wicked restraints, untying the ropes of a yoke,
setting free the mistreated,
and breaking every yoke?
7 Isn’t it sharing your bread with the hungry
and bringing the homeless poor into your house,
covering the naked when you see them,
and not hiding from your own family?
8 Then your light will break out like the dawn,
and you will be healed quickly.
Your own righteousness will walk before you,
and the Lord’s glory will be your rear guard.
9 Then you will call, and the Lord will answer;
you will cry for help, and God will say, “I’m here.”
If you remove the yoke from among you,
the finger-pointing, the wicked speech;
10 if you open your heart to the hungry,
and provide abundantly for those who are afflicted,
your light will shine in the darkness,
and your gloom will be like the noon.
11 The Lord will guide you continually
and provide for you, even in parched places.
He will rescue your bones.
You will be like a watered garden,
like a spring of water that won’t run dry.
12 They will rebuild ancient ruins on your account;
the foundations of generations past you will restore.
You will be called Mender of Broken Walls,
Restorer of Livable Streets.
Prayers of Intercession: (CORE, adapted) Let us pray that the light of Christ may shine upon the Church, the world, and all people according to their need.
Heavenly Father, Your Word is life for us and challenges us to be faithful to You. But we often stumble and fall short in fulfilling it. Thank You for Jesus, who fulfilled Your Word and who IS Your Word. Thank You for planting His grace, mercy, and obedience in our hearts. For His sake, make us like Him: salt and light, hope and holiness, so others may turn to Him and live.
Bless the people and ministries of this congregation. Fill us with Your Holy Spirit. Let everything we say and do glorify You and help our neighbor, especially the poor, lonely, and distressed people in our community.
Father, being a disciple means being a student of Jesus. Give us teachable hearts and minds. Lead us in paths of devotion and holiness. Form us into Your people who walk with those whose path is hard and lonely. Use us to bring hope, encouragement, and Jesus’ love to those who need it most.
Cause the rulers of all nations, especially our own, to obey the words of the prophet: to do justice tempered with mercy, and to care for the poor. Help us all not only to refrain from evil, but to actively pursue righteousness, as we strive to live in peace.
Bring healing and hope to everyone burdened by sin, sorrow, and suffering. Shine the light of Christ upon them, and upon all who care for them.
Heavenly Father, we thank You for those who are and were salt and light in our lives. Kindle Your Spirit in us, and help us to encourage one another along life’s way.
All these things, and whatever else You see that we need, grant to us, dear Father, for the sake of Your Son, our Savior Jesus Christ who taught us to pray together by praying…
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: This morning we highlight youth ministries. The kids and leaders meet one Sunday a month, and one Thursday a month. While having fun and playing games, they are learning to live in community with faith as a cornerstone. Thank you to our youth leaders. Thank you to all parents for prioritizing faith development.
Offering prayer: Liberating God, Receive these gifts as signs of our willingness to share bread with the hungry, to break chains of injustice, to repair what is broken. May our generosity reflect Your mercy and our living mirror Your love. Use us and these gifts, so that light might rise in the darkness and hope take root where despair has reigned. In Christ’s name, we pray. Amen. (Discipleship Ministries, adapted)
Hymn of Preparation: #405 Seek Ye First
Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness
And all these things shall be added unto you. Allelu, alleluia!
Ask and it shall be given unto you. Seek and ye shall find.
Knock and the door shall be opened unto you. Allelu, alleluia!
13 “You are the salt of the earth. But if salt loses its saltiness, how will it become salty again? It’s good for nothing except to be thrown away and trampled under people’s feet. 14 You are the light of the world. A city on top of a hill can’t be hidden. 15 Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a basket. Instead, they put it on top of a lampstand, and it shines on all who are in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before people, so they can see the good things you do and praise your Father who is in heaven.
17 “Don’t even begin to think that I have come to do away with the Law and the Prophets. I haven’t come to do away with them but to fulfill them. 18 I say to you very seriously that as long as heaven and earth exist, neither the smallest letter nor even the smallest stroke of a pen will be erased from the Law until everything there becomes a reality. 19 Therefore, whoever ignores one of the least of these commands and teaches others to do the same will be called the lowest in the kingdom of heaven. But whoever keeps these commands and teaches people to keep them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. 20 I say to you that unless your righteousness is greater than the righteousness of the legal experts and the Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.
Message: Dimensions of Salt and Light Pastor Becky
Do you remember as a kid wishing for time to go faster? Or a certain milestone to come faster? I was really looking forward to turning 16. Then I would be able to drive, legally. Hey, I was a farm kid – if you could see over the dashboard, you could drive. What I really wanted was to be able to drive to school and not have to ride the bus. The bus came early, really early. It also didn’t stop in front of my house. My sisters and I had to walk to the nearest intersection to the state road as there were no bus stops on the township roads. This changed by my senior year, but I was driving by then, so it didn’t matter. I just wanted to drive to school.
And I did drive, I still love to drive – but here’s the thing. In order to drive, I needed a car and to get a car I needed a job, one that paid actual money. Then if you have a car, you need insurance. So I got to drive the car to work to pay for the car that seemed to be parked more often then I got to drive. Plus, I didn’t just get to drive for myself; I became the chauffeur of my sisters, the grocery getter for my great grandmother, the grand errand runner. What I thought was going to grant me freedom and allow me to live my dream life, landed me on the path to maturity and responsibility.
As followers of Jesus, I'm afraid we get caught up in this way of thinking more often than we realize. We get sort of caught up in the notion that there are these milestones along the journey of discipleship, and once we reach them, well, we've made it. We can rest, because we've arrived at a place where God will bless us and encourage us, and all we really have to do is put life in cruise control, on autopilot, and just wait on eternity. But then...well, then we hear words from Jesus that call us to a deeper, more mature faith. We hear words from Jesus that call us to more responsibility in the kingdom of God.
Right before our text for this morning, are the Beatitudes. You know the ones:
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs in the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account, for your reward is great in heaven.
The opening words of the Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes, sound encouraging. They are words that speak of blessings, especially upon those who aren't so used to being blessed. However, verse 13 shifts the sermon into a different gear. Jesus says there:
You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled under foot.
Salt. We are all salt. If you think about it, salt really is an amazing mineral. It enhances the flavor of our favorite foods, acts as a preservative, melts the ice on frozen steps and frozen roads, and it was of such great value in the ancient world that it was sometimes used as currency. In fact, the word "salary" comes from the practice of paying a worker with salt. Salt is a pretty amazing thing when it is used; but when it isn't used, when it's just salt, or when it has somehow lost its taste, it isn't much good for anything. In fact, salt by itself can be quite terrible, even corrosive. Being the "salt of the earth" implies that we have some job to do, some responsibility in this kingdom of which Jesus speaks. Being the salt of the earth isn't about being something great and wonderful on our own; no, it's about being the ones who bring out the great and wonderful things of God's kingdom to others.
Now, if Jesus' salt metaphor in verse 13 is a little confusing, I think He clears things up pretty well in the three verses that follow. He says there:
You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.
Light. We are light, and light, like salt, is pretty amazing, so long as it's illuminating something else. Light by itself can be pointless, wasteful, and even destructive. That's why Jesus says we are to let our light shine before others, not ourselves, so that those others may see our good works and give glory--not to us--but to God. We shine as the light of the world not for our own sake, but for the sake of others. We give light so that others may see the way of God. In the end, it isn't really even our light that shines forth after all: it is God's light.
Salt and light are only useful when they partner or come along side something else. We, as followers of Jesus, fulfill our roles as disciples when we flavor the earth and illuminate the world with our actions and words that ultimately point to Christ. As long as we see the life of faith as little more than a promise of reward, a future rest for a chosen few, we lose our flavor and our light is hidden under a basket. Our discipleship is about our lived out lives today, in front of our families, on display for our neighbors, and most importantly before God.
The seriousness with which Jesus commands us to be salt and light can be heard in the final four verses of our text today. Here Jesus says:
Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, will be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.
With these words, Jesus corrects any misunderstanding about how His followers are to understand the law and the prophets: He has not come to do away with them; rather, He has come to fulfill them. I think what Jesus is saying with these words is that He has come to fulfill the whole of the law and the prophets, to fill them with meaning and not allow them to simply be rules by which we judge one another's righteousness. He came to put flesh on them, for this obedience would not be hollow, mindless following – but a living embodiment of grace and compassion. To see mercy and love in action.
With these words about salt, light, and the fulfillment of the law and prophets, Jesus is setting before us, His followers, some very deep truths about what it means to be His disciples. When we feel that grace is just a ticket on the bus out of Hell, when we feel that our religion is just one of the defining characteristics of all of who we are, when we convince ourselves that our faith is really about how much better we can be than someone else by following more rules or abstaining from more vices, then we begin to lose our flavor. Then we begin to hide our light under the basket.
We cannot fall into the trap of those who believe righteousness measured on a score card of rules followed and rules broken. Let us not fool ourselves into believing that the call to follow Jesus is an easy, free ride into eternity. We are the salt of the earth. We are the light of the world.
God, help us to flavor, preserve, and purify as salt and diminish our bend to corrosion. God, help us shine, illuminate, and uncover as light and remove our gaze from artificial light. May we commit to being salt and light so that our righteousness may exceed the righteousness of those who keep tabs. May we commit ourselves to Jesus who calls us to the joyous responsibility of sharing the love of God with others. Amen.
Closing Hymn: #206 I Want to Walk as a Child of the Light
- I want to walk as a child of the light, I want to follow Jesus.
God set the stars to give light to the world. The star of my life is Jesus.
Refrain: In Him there is no darkness at all. The night and the day are both alike.
The Lamb is the light of the city of God. Shine in my heart, Lord Jesus.
- I want to see the brightness of God. I want to look at Jesus.
Clear Sun of Righteousness, shine on my path, and show me the way to the Father. (Refrain)
- I’m looking for the coming of Christ. I want to be with Jesus.
When we have run with patience the race, we shall know the joy of Jesus. (Refrain)
The blessing: May the Lord bless you and keep you and make His face shine upon you this week.
Go Now in Peace: Go now in peace. Never be afraid. God will go with you each hour of ev’ry day. Go now in faith, steadfast strong and true. Know He will guide you in all you do. Go now in love and show you believe. Reach out to others, so all the world can see. God will be there, watching from above. Go now in peace, in faith, and in love.
