The Lord is Just
October 1, 2023
World Wide Communion Sunday
Prelude
Lighting the Christ Candle
Welcome and Announcements
Called to Worship:
Place your trust in the Lord, for God will provide.
There are times when we are so fearful.
Place your trust in the Lord, for God is with you.
There are times when we wonder if we can get past our troubles.
Come, place your trust in the Lord, every day, in all your ways.
Lord, we come to you, seeking your healing love and mercy. AMEN.
Hymn: 209 O love that wilt not let me go
Prayer of Adoration
God of mercy, you promised never to break your covenant with us.
Amid all the changing words of our generation, speak your eternal Word that does not change. Speak again to dispel all of our assumptions and misunderstandings about your will for us. Show us, again how you desire the best of your kingdom for us.
Then may we respond to your gracious promises, with praise and thanksgiving. Then may we respond to you in worship with adoration and confidence, and leave with a commitment to live faithful and obedient lives;
through our Lord Jesus Christ in whose name we now make our confession before you
Prayer of Confession:
Eternal God, in whom we live and move and have our being, whose face is hidden from us by our sins, and whose mercy we forget in the blindness of our hearts: Cleanse us from all our offenses, and deliver us from proud thoughts and vain desires, that with reverent and humble hearts we may draw near to you,
confessing our faults, trusting in your justice, confiding in your grace, and finding in you our refuge and strength; through Jesus Christ your Son. Amen
Assurance of Pardon
The mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting. I declare to you, in the name of Jesus Christ, we are forgiven.
May the God of mercy, who forgives you all our sins, strengthen us in all goodness, and by the power of the Holy Spirit keep us in eternal life.
In Jesus Christ we are forgiven.
The Peace
Passing the Peace
Hymn: 348 Tell me the stories of Jesus
Scripture:
Ezekiel 18: 1-4, 25-32p 1309
Matthew 21: 23-32 p 1532
Sermon: The Lord is Just
Ezekiel is speaking to the people who are in exile in Babylon. It is the usual story of the people of Israel, they had forgotten God, and had sinned. They had been called to repentance and they continued to sin. When warned again, they continued to sin.
Then, as often happened in that part of the world, another nation waged war and they were carried away into exile.
In exile some of the people were calling God unjust, because parents and children alike were being punished for the sins of the parent. The commentators pointed out that this was not true. Each person in exile, young or old, was accountable for their own sin. The younger generation, they said, needed to examine themselves and discover this truth. Moreover, said some, they needed to stop playing the victim card and take responsibility for what they themselves had done.
Now it is true that in Exodus 20 we read that the sins of the Fathers are punished to the third or fourth generation. In our day we would talk about generational trauma. Each subsequent generation struggling with its own sin, following the sins they lived with as children.
The first time I encountered this explanation was in a meeting with Stuart Folster at the Circle West Indigenous Congregation. He spoke of the trauma his mother endured in residential school, which separated her from her family. Subsequently she had no idea of how to be a parent, nor how to overcome the other struggles that she had. This affected their family life. As a result he then did not learn how to be a parent and his children had also suffered from that lack of parenting and the problems that plagued him. He pointed out that it takes a few generations to learn the skills that are needed to restore whole family life.
So, it was interesting to read that in the Jewish Targum, it is reported that saying God is unjust to punish the 3rd or 4th generations would be wrong. They write that this passage from Exodus refers to the sins of the father and the rebelliousness of the children. So, the punishment is not unjust for each is accountable for their own sins.
That each is accountable for their own sins is exactly what Ezekiel is reminding the people in exile. In the verses that we did not read, Ezekiel points out that God says that the actions of the person who keeps the law, who does not rob or steal and who helps the poor is counted as righteousness.
That righteousness is not imparted to the child. If the child robs the poor and steals food from the hungry and worships at shrines in the hills, this sin is accounted against them, and not their parents.
So if we are all sinners where is the hope?
Hope is in God, because the Lord is just.
Ezekiel then goes on to speak of God’s mercy, because if the unrighteous person repents and changes their ways they will be counted as righteous.
Ezekiel had no problem with God punishing those who were sinful. The commentator Wolfe writes: After all a God who did nothing to keep the community in line would be as worthless as a society that did nothing to punish its criminals.
Yet Wolfe also points out that in this passage we see that the God who metes out punishment, also desires to be merciful. That mercy is extended to all people and is a reason for us to hope that God waits for us change our ways.
However we are reminded that sometimes sin belongs to the community. When we think about a whole nation being taken away into exile, we also see that the community of the people are also accountability for the sin in the community. For those who participated as well as those who turned a blind eye to it.
When Israel forgot God and sinned, they also failed to live together as a just society. They failed the widow, the orphan and the stranger in their land. Each is responsible for their own sin, but the community as a whole is also accountable.
What Ezekiel is trying to make clear is that obedience to God is exemplified in our behaviour, personally and corporately. How does the community of God behave? How do they treat their community? How do they treat the most vulnerable among them, and in their community?
Although written for the Jewish people, the truth in this passage is also applicable to the Christian Church. Our actions must match our creed and our belief.
How well do we love neighbour? The poor? The weak? The least of these?
Ezekiel challenges the exiles –and us—to throw away our sin and our rebellion and make for ourselves a new heart and a new spirit.
However, we cannot do that in our own strength. This is why God is merciful. In the mercy and grace of God, we do open ourselves to growing that new heart and new spirit. God has given us Jesus and the Holy Spirit and the work they do in our hearts makes that growth possible.
God’s desire is that righteousness be possible for all of us. He makes a way for even the worst sinner among us to have a new heart and a new spirit. Ezekiel reminds the people that even the wicked may turn away from their sins and change course and live together in peace and justice. Therefore, the future remains open for the wicked and the righteous alike.
Is God’s justice unfair?
Not in God’s viewpoint. But that is the wrong question to be asking. God is just. He gives of his goodness as each of us needs. In Hebrew, the word Justice means to weigh or to measure. God not only sees our heart, he also knows the burden we carry, be that burden generational trauma, or coping with the emotional onslaught of illness or unemployment, or people who are abusive to us. Everything that affects us spiritually and emotionally is part of the burden that God measures. His mercy is given to us in equal measure to our burden. That is just, simply because it ensures that each one of us receives enough mercy to make the journey to wholeness and a new spirit and a new heart.
No matter what our sins are. No matter what our burdens are. No matter how far we have strayed from God or one another, God’s mercy is poured out in equal measure.
In every situation God’s commitment to human life makes the future possible. There is a deep mystery involved here. Try as we might we will never understand God’s ways. It is enough to know that God always desires and prefers us to have righteousness and life God wants us to be forgiven. God wants us to have a whole new heart and a spirit brimming with faith. God always desires us to be with him in all things. God always loves us.
God always loves us. For that reason alone, God will ensure that his mercy will be more than enough to bring us back into the fold.
God’s mercy is the rock which supports his justice. Therefore God’s is always just.
Always.
Amen.
Hymn: 377 Come children join to sing
Offering and Offertory
Doxology 830
Offertory Prayer
Almighty and merciful God, from whom comes all that is good, we praise you for your mercies, for your goodness that has created us, your grace that has sustained us, your discipline that has corrected us, your patience that has borne with us, and your love that has redeemed us.
Help us to love you, and to be thankful for all your gifts by serving you and delighting to do your will, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Gathering Prayer Requests
Prayers of the People and the Lord’s Prayer
O God, our help in ages past: we see your faithfulness displayed across the heavens and around the world. We have been lifted again and again as you kept your promises to us. Yet, we wonder about the future: about the world's future and our own future. We forget your promises along with your great, saving acts on record in your Word.
We thank you, most patient God, for keeping faith with us in spite of our doubt, and particularly for providing for us examples of steadfastness, of belief in the future, to shame and hearten us. We thank you that your rule is one of justice, filled with mercy and overflowing with love for each one of us.
Hear us today as we pray for your world and all who are in it.
First we bring our joys
We pray for those who are in need
We pray for the hurting places in the world
We pray for all those who have been outraged in this past week. We have forgotten our history O Lord, and publicly honoured someone who fought against you and your people. We have forgotten that you love all of your people, and we recoil when people advertise for a play group designed only for white children. Show us that we are all one in you, regardless of race or creed. Remind us to live compassionately with one another.
We pray for your church world -wide and especially for the congregations here in Salmon Arm. May our witness signify our unity in you and our joy in Jesus, that all your people in this place may be served.
Lord, you have called us to serve you. Grant that we may minister in your name, with your love in our hearts, your truth in our minds, your strength in our wills; until, at the end of our journey, we know the joy of our homecoming and the welcome of your embrace; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Who taught us to pray saying:
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
Invitation to Communion
Friends, this is the joyful feast of unity. Christ has gathered his people around the earth to commune at this table.
Across political lines and economic lines, from all the nations on earth, in places of powerfully protected affluence, and among the poorest of the poor, we share a meal, joining in one in all the denominations who revere and serve Jesus, remembering and celebrating Him who is the One who proved that God’s grace and peace is possible.
And so, come: you from the East and you from the West, from the North and from the South.
Come. Come with your doubts, come with your hopes, come with your inadequacies and with your strengths.
Come, for this is a table where all are invited and all are welcome.
Communion Hymn: 528 Jesus calls us here to meet him
The Apostle’s Creed 539 the book of praise
I believe in God, the Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth.
I believe in Jesus Christ, God’s only son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and was buried; he descended to the dead.
On the third day he rose again; he ascended into Heaven, he is seated at the right hand of the Father, and will come to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting. Amen
Warrant
That we may fulfill our Lord’s intention for us, we take these natural elements of bread and wine, setting them apart from all common uses to this Holy Mystery and, as Christ gave thanks, we present to God our Prayers and thanksgivings.
Great Prayer of Thanksgiving 564 BP
The Lord be with you
and also with you
Lift up your hearts
We lift them up to the Lord
Let us give thanks to the Lord our God
It is right to give God thanks and praise
It is indeed right to praise you, O God of spirit and flesh. You are the creator of heaven and earth and you have arranged for our well-being the gifts of the cross and of grain and grape.
We rejoice to come to your table of grace, to feed ourselves with the gifts you give us, and thank you for the love poured out in the blood of Jesus.
We gather in the unity of your Spirit, sensing that he shines in the sunlight, sailing on the wind, and singing in the soul of each of us gathered here.
In this feast of bread and wine, restore us in your image that our lives might ignite a love to light the world. Let your presence passing through us infuse the world with joy, we pray.
Therefore we join the joyous song of the angels and archangels and we raise our voices in a song of praise, saying
Holy, holy, holy Lord, God of power and might, heaven and earth are full of your glory.
Hosanna in the highest. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest.
In Christ you break down the walls that make us strangers to ourselves, and divide us from one another. Remind us that we are the body of Christ, who feed upon his grace at this table and who are called to enact our faith in the world
His body, broken is restored tow wholeness, his lifeblood poured out brings healing to your world and your people.
And in praise we proclaim the mystery of faith:
Christ has died, Christ is Risen, Christ will come again.
Today we celebrate the Risen Christ who is present among us, and we now ask your presence with us in this feast.
By your Spirit make us one with Christ, one with each other and one in ministry to all the world, until we feast together at the heavenly banquet in your eternal presence.
Light of Light, True God of true God, Spirit of holiness, we praise you now, tomorrow and evermore. Amen.
Celebrating at the Table
Hear the words of the Institution of the Holly Supper as they are given to us by the Apostle Paul.
We celebrate this feast in obedience to Christ’s example and mandate.
Take and Break bread
The Lord Jesus Christ on the night of his arrest, took bread and after giving thanks to God he broke it and gave it to his disciples saying:
Take, eat. This is my body broken for you. Do this in remembrance of me.
Pour into and Lift the cup
In the same way he took cup after supper saying:
Take and drink. This cup is the new covenant sealed in my blood, she for you for the forgiveness of sins. Do this in remembrance of me.
Every time you eat this bread and drink this cup you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes again.
Sending out the gifts
Come for all is ready.
This is the body, broken for you.
….
Take, eat, remember and believe that the body of our Lord Jesus Christ was given for the complete forgiveness of our sins.
This is the cup of salvation.
Take, drink, remember, and believe that the precious blood of Jesus was shed for the complete forgiveness of our sins.
Prayer after Communion
O God of all, you rightly reign over all the earth. You are our strength and our shield. Your majesty is a glorious robe, and you shall reign forever.
We rejoice in your enduring love, and your goodness which flows from Heaven’s storehouse. Refreshed and rejoicing we go forth to be your people and to sing your praises. Amen
Hymn: 663 God whose giving knows no ending
Charge and Benediction
May the God of steadfastness and encouragement grant us to live in harmony with one another, in accordance with Christ Jesus, so that together we may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
May we forever know the grace of Jesus, the mercy of God and the comfort of the Spirit. Amen.
Sung Blessing Go now in Peace. Three Fold Amen