Between intention and action
March 9, 2025 Lent 1
Lighting of the Christ Candle
Welcome and Announcements
Call to Worship
If you have days when you feel a little bit lost and a little bit found,
then you are in the right place.
If you have days when you are desperate for rest and eager to grow,
then you are in the right place.
If you have days when your prayers could be both shouts and silence,
then you are in the right place.
God meets us here, in the messy middle of our lives.
So may we bring our full selves into this service and into this season.
With God’s help, may it be so.
Let us worship our all-loving God.
Hymn: 202 We lay our hurting world at your feet
Prayer of Approach
Holy God, Your invitation is simple. You lean in close. You say our name. With joy in your voice, you invite us to follow. But the noise of this world is distracting, and we are afraid, so we get stuck somewhere between our head and our heart. We get stuck somewhere between our intent and our action. So today we pray, speak to us again.
Tell us the story. Invite us to follow. Speak once more, of good news that will not leave us alone. Speak to us again, for we are listening. Amen.
Call to Confession
Lent is a season that invites us to be intentional.
Lent asks us, how will you go deeper these next six weeks?
How will you grow closer to God and your neighbor?
What will you do to strengthen your faith?
Much like Christ, Lent invites us to go deeper.
Despite our best efforts, that soul-tending work is often easier said than done. However, instead of entering this season already feeling behind, let us enter this season with honesty. Let us enter this season aware of our hopes, and aware of the challenges. Let us enter this season wrapped in God’s grace.
Friends, join me in speaking honestly to God. Join me in receiving mercy. Let us pray:
Prayer of Confession:
Jesus said, “Follow me.”
And I said, let me get ready.
Jesus said, “follow me.”
And I said, just one minute!
Jesus said, “Follow me.”
And I said, I’ll be there soon!
The invitation is simple, but the work is hard. Jesus, forgive my delay. I want to follow you. Turn my intentions into actions. Show me the way. Amen.
Assurance of Pardon
Lent asks, “How will you go deeper? How will you follow Christ?” Regardless of what that journey looks like for us, regardless of what today, tomorrow, or the next day brings, we are not alone. We are seen and loved by God.
We are held in grace. Thanks be to God for a love like that.
Passing the Peace
Hymn: 704 Teach me God to wonder
Scripture:
Responsive Psalm 93 p 932
Luke 9: 51-62 p 1611
Sermon: Between intention and action
The last few years we have been following the preaching cycle in Sanctified Arts for Advent and Lent. During Lent this year, they have an outline that looks at the journey of Jesus to Jerusalem, and the difficulties with the disciples as they struggle with the demands of discipleship. Each week we will look at the struggle between intention and action in various areas.
The purpose of this series is to look at the human struggle we all have in following Jesus. It’s like Paul wrote to the Romans, For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Romans 7: 19 NIV
The people at Sanctified Arts call this journey, occupying the messy middle. We want to do better, but we often fail.
This journey is meant to reassure us. The disciples occupied the messy middle as well. It is a part of the human condition, and we, like the disciples will struggle with it.
Today’s journey is just one example of that struggle.
The events of this day ran smack into cultural and religious viewpoints that the disciples, and the people of Samaria held.
The history of the people of Samaria was complex.
They were descended from Jewish people who had intermarried with the population.
They believed in the same God as the people of Israel, however they didn’t think that it was necessary to have to go to Jerusalem to worship God. They worshipped him in their own way in the hill country. The way they worshipped was a huge problem between them and those who believed the only place to worship was in the Temple in Jerusalem.
For this reason, the people of Israel hated the Samaritans. The sentiment was returned.
It was the custom among the people to take the long way around Samaria to avoid making contact with Samaritan people. And the people of Samaria in turn took the long way around Jerusalem when they travelled.
Jesus sends the disciples to prepare the way for him to go into Samaria. When they get there, they are not welcomed because they are on the way to Jerusalem.
When the disciples James and John saw this, they asked, “Lord, do you want us to call fire down from heaven to destroy them[a]?” 55 But Jesus turned and rebuked them. 56 Then he and his disciples went to another village. Luke 9: 54-56
The commentator Scott Hoezee calls this an example of the disciples being distracted from what they should be focusing on. They needed to focus on supporting Jesus on the journey to Jerusalem where Jesus will go to die.
Except that they didn’t understand his choice to make that journey and they argued with Jesus to not go…
Commentators also spoke about sometimes our own desires and intentions can be a distraction from the journey with Jesus.
And yet, they also note the irony that the disciples ask Jesus, who has been telling them as they travelled to Samaria that he had come down from heaven and that he will return to heaven… How ironic that they asked him if they should ask Heaven to smite the Samaritans dead.
God sent Jesus down from heaven, not to smite the Samaritans, or the Greeks, or the Gentiles or the Jews, but to redeem them and gather them in.
Jesus who came to be the salvation of all people, could not possibly be in favour of smiting dead the people he came to save. The disciples acted from their intention to redeem his honour from the insult of the Samaritans, and in the meantime Jesus intended to go to Jerusalem for their salvation. Jesus saw his honour in dying for those who were dishonouring him.
It is clear that the Samaritans don’t know who Jesus is, but then despite the constant teaching of Jesus, maybe the disciples don’t know who he is either.
What is important is that Jesus knows who he is.
Hoezee says that the fact that he wanted to take the short-cut through Samaria was more than just a reflection on how he loved the Samaritan people, but also a sign of his eagerness to go to Jerusalem. Jesus was ultra focused on the journey to complete God’s will and chose to go the quickest way possible.
The commentator Harmon talks in terms of the disciples being given this as an opportunity to realign their priorities in life and remember what Jesus has been teaching them about the need to go to Jerusalem.
It is no wonder that Jesus rebukes them.
The disciples Harmon writes, prove the difficulty of separating ourselves from those things that already have a hold on us.
We know that we have all been shaped by our life experiences, our family values and loyalties, and even the things of the world that can distract us from Kingdom values. The worldly things which shape us can be behind our intentions when we make choices. We don’t necessarily choose bad things, but in the choices, we have neglected to choose kingdom things. Therefore, we need to unravel ourselves from the things of this world in order to follow Jesus.
It is never that simple to see it while it is happening.
Not many people know that immediately after High School I was on track for pursuing an education to prepare me for ministry. Then I got a job to pay for the university expenses, then I bought a car, and then I got married and had a baby and got divorced.
Then I started looking at my life and wondering where it was going to lead me, and re-discovered the calling to ministry. Only this time it was harder, and with the need to care for a child, and work and study it took longer as well.
This portion of my story is the example of coming back to what is necessary. Many of you have your own coming back to God story.
Coming back to what is necessary for Kingdom living, is what we are constantly being called to do. We live in the messy middle and we make messy decisions that pull us away from our calling. Then when we refocus our attention on what God is calling forth from us, we start again the journey to follow Jesus.
On this journey from Samaria to Jerusalem, Jesus uses the time to point out the difficulty of discipleship. They didn’t know what it is going to bring, but it seems as if Jesus is showing the disciples that it will bring difficulty. Especially the difficulty of making choices of what to leave behind in order to follow him.
His point is proven as he speaks to those whom they meet on the road.
They all profess to desire to follow Jesus, but Jesus points out to each of them the stumbling block that may be holding them back.
The first person is told that the followers of Jesus didn’t even have a fox hole in which to rest.
The second person was told to let the dead bury their dead.
The third was told that no one who looked back at what was behind them was fit for the kingdom of God.
It is important to note that we don’t know how these encounters ended for these people on the road.
Were they deterred with never again being able to have a home of their own? Did they go home to bury their dead? Say goodbye to their family? Did they go and never come back to the sense that they needed to follow Jesus? Or did they discover that following Jesus was more important than the distractions of the security of a home, the desire to be with ailing and dying parents, and staying close to family members who wanted them to stay?
We don’t know, but we do know that life is fluid, and we always have the opportunity to change our life’s path and get back on the road on which we are called to follow Jesus.
What we also need to know is that we don’t follow Jesus in our own strength or by our own will. Yes, we make the choice to follow, but the truth is that we need the Holy Spirit if we are going to do this thing undistracted. We need to be continually examining our motives and keep on guard for those things that distract us from the main thing.
Many of us will find the distracted road filling our lives many times along the way and then we will once again feel the pull of the Spirit to get on the road and follow Jesus.
Both Hoezee and Harmon point out that being distracted is a part of the human condition. If we beat ourselves up about being distracted, that in itself becomes a distraction. Guilt, can hold us back from making the changes that lead us back to following Jesus.
The message of being caught between intention and action is to let go of past choices. We need to trust God, accept the forgiveness and the grace of Jesus and get back on the road.
What we will discover through this Lenten series is that the messy middle is a place where we can become comfortable. That is the real danger.
We can just drift along, believing that we are following Jesus—the disciples were an example of that. They thought that they were doing the right thing for Jesus in that encounter in Samaria. They thought they were doing the right thing in preventing Jesus from going to Jerusalem. Double checking our intentions is always a good thing.
So for us, the challenge of this journey through Lent is for us to keep evaluating the road we are travelling. We need to keep asking are we going where Jesus is leading us, or are we being pulled in another direction?
And then, when we have the answer and accept the calling, we cannot let family, friends or any other thing distract us. Because they will try.
Willimon when he was chaplain at Duke University often got calls from angry parents who thought their child, who entered the college eager to study business, had abandoned that path and now wanted to go to Africa as a missionary. They demanded to know how could he encourage them to ruin their lives in that way? That’s a problem…when we encounter Jesus it takes us out of that safe life we or our parents or children may have envisioned. And they will apply pressure to change our minds.
I got that same call from my sister, when I gave my niece the information she wanted about becoming a medical missionary. Things got even dicier between me and Fran when Dana went on a short-term mission to Haiti.
To follow Jesus requires sacrifice. We need to assess what we are being called to leave behind: kith and kin, cozy well paying jobs, a position of importance, or whatever other things are important to us. Then we need to align our intentions with making a radical commitment to the gospel. That means making hard choices and sacrifices.
Barbara Taylor Brown says that in those choices we need to “cordon off parts of our lives from the total claim Jesus makes on us”.
That sounds like a very daunting task. It seems to mean more than just putting police tape around them, and seeing them daily, and hearing the whispering their temptation. It means a radical cutting-off of those things that keep us from Jesus as we accept the same self-denying sacrifices that Jesus exemplified as he turned his face toward Jerusalem.
Once we commit to moving out of the messy middle we will hear Jesus quietly saying, “follow me,” and we will follow, even if it means we are going to Jerusalem. Amen
Affirmation of Faith
We believe in Jesus Christ, who said to ordinary people, “Follow me,” and with his love, changed the world. We believe in the Holy Spirit who tethers us to all of creation, nudging us toward deeper and more intentional faith. And we believe in the Creator who brings the sun over the horizon each morning, allowing every day to be a new beginning. So with this new day, with Jesus’ invitation ringing in our ears, and the Holy Spirit’s tethering love, we realign our hopes with our words, our dreams with our prayers, our intentions with our actions.
Jesus, we believe. Guide our feet. Amen.
Hymn: 211 Take up your cross
Offering and Doxology 830
Offertory Prayer
Jesus, teach us to be generous, you have given us so much.
Jesus teach us to serve you as you deserve by following you as we: give without counting the cost, and toil and not seek for reward.
We pray that as we bring this offering before you it is the reflection of our love and devotion to you, and to the world and its inhabitants. Amen.
Gathering Prayer Requests
Prayer of Thanksgiving and Intercession
God of the blessed we praise you, for mercy shown, grace given,
living water, Spirit’s power.
We ask you for daily strength, hope for tomorrow, your word to guide, and strong feet to follow.
God of the oppressed we bring to you the broken ones, forgotten ones, exploited and abused ones. Bring freedom and release, love and compassion to damaged hearts and souls,
We bring your first our joy and thanksgiving:
JOY
TT
Hear our prayers this day, for those whom we love and the world you have called us to love. Hear our prayers and answer with your mercy and your boundless grace.
CONCERNS
WORLD
We pray for the leaders of all countries that they will be empowered and grow stronger as they serve the people that they are called to serve. Guide them with your Spirit.
We pray for the Ukraine, that their efforts to secure the peace and freedom they previously knew, be empowered by your grace and fulfilled as you bring them mercy and justice.
We pray for Canada: Giving you thanks that we remain a strong nation. May our leaders translate that strength into providing justice and mercy for all. And may we who live in freedom here, be willing to share in the labour of justice and mercy for all as we go forth in your name.
God of Eternal Love, you know that we struggle with life in the messy middle. Our desire is to grow closer to you, to be your people of action. Help us to leave behind our sometimes questionable intentions and live fully as you intend.
We have made our commitment to You, and have started a new journey into purposeful growth.
But, we know that if we are to remain faithful we need Your help and Your strength.
We need your guidance for the Lenten Journey…
So, we ask…
Teach us to pray with faith and read Your Word with understanding.
Teach us to worship with passion and gather together with love.
Teach us to give generously, serve compassionately and use our time mindfully, so that we may reflect Your goodness, and that others may discover Your grace through us. Hear us now as we pray as Jesus 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 debts as we forgive our debtors and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, for ever. Amen
Hymn: 209 O love that wilt not let me go
Benediction
As you leave this place, may you find God in every messy middle.
May you know that the world is bigger than two sides. May you trust that you are made in the image of God, and therefore, you contain the multitude of God’s grace and mercy. .
So may you move through this world with an open heart, with a curious mind, and with the confidence that you do not go alone. God is with you in the mountains, in the valleys, and everywhere in between. Believe that good news, and go in peace.
Blessing Song: 646 Lead me Jesus I will follow
Lead me Jesus I will follow,
down the dusty pathway
all along the sea
Teach me Jesus to be loving
your disciple I will be x2
Cc Ted Creen 1982
3-Fold Amen