(Click HERE to find the FBLive video of this service, starts at 15:00, sermon begins at 29:00)
(Click HERE to donate to Lidgerwood Church’s ministries and missions)
1
Mark Wheeler
Matthew 8:1-4, 16-17
“A Lenten Season of Recovery: Treasure!”
02/21/2021
Lidgerwood Presbyterian Church
2
GATHER
We are, each of us, created a precious and holy vessel of embodied love. We have been through a harrowing year since last Lent, 2020, has shattered our sense of wholeness – body, mind, and spirit – like a glass vessel fractured into pieces. Let us enter a Lenten “season of recovery” as we focus on Jesus, the Healer of our every ill.
I
“Holy Vessels” – THRESHOLD
Beach glass begins as something whole and yet discarded. As it is tumbled by the sea, it is broken and polished until it becomes a treasured “mineral gem.” We do not believe that suffering is necessary or God-given, but that suffering is a part of life. When pain comes and brokenness enters our lives, Jesus reaches out to touch and remind us of the Treasure that we all are – worthy of new life in the midst of seeming hopelessness. In a year when pandemic has wreaked havoc on our world, we begin by affirming our journey to physical health.
“Holy Vessels” – THRESHOLD – continues
5
APPROACH
Lent developed into a season of intense inward reflection and confession centuries after the life of Jesus. Yet, as we will see, Jesus encouraged people to open up about their lives – to speak truth – no matter how broken. This is the beginning of compassion for ourselves and for others. It is the beginning of healing. The Latin origins of the word “confess” is to “study and acknowledge.” This will be a season of studying how we can be a healing presence in our community. To do this, we acknowledge our own need to restore our own Holy Vessels. Let us pray:
Creator God,
We are bodies fashioned by Your hand in Your own image,
shapes and colors of diverse and immense beauty.
And yet too often we have ignored the sacred nature of our physical lives.
The Holy Vessels You have fashioned are tired and suffering,
ravaged by months of disrupted rhythms and ailment.
Our fragility has come into full view and we are frightened even.
The proportions of loss we have experienced is unfathomable, and so we look away,
sometimes even from our own needs.
Help us, Healer. Show us our strength. Forgive our inertia.
Move us to move, one step at a time, toward greater care.
In this silence, we sense and acknowledge our yearning for wholeness.
. . . [Silence]
II
“Holy Vessels” – 1x
7
Know this: God’s love and grace surround you … No. Matter. What.
You are a precious and holy vessel right now.
Christ’s light is a treasure given freely.
For you, for me, for all.
Take a deep breath in to let this truth fill you…
and breathe out with the relief of assurance.
CAMERA
Let’s take a second to greet each other, and those in the room, look at the camera and say HI to your friends who are at home. Tell your loved ones, “May the Love of Christ surround you.”
Welcome to this “gathering” in God’s name. We are assembled in NorthEast Spokane, WA, along with people from all over the world. We are very glad you are “here” with us.
7
For those who made it into the building this morning – thank you for wearing your masks and following the seating and walking protocols. We do this not to protect ourselves from others, but to protect others from ourselves. Because we love each other, we wear masks and keep distance to keep each other safe from this “invisible potential enemy”. COVID numbers are way up in our area – let’s not give them an opportunity to climb even higher. Our Elders are listening to CDC guidelines and deciding on what seems best practices for each others’ safety. We love you, and we want everyone to be and to stay well.
Be filled with God’s Holy Spirit presence and power, in your homes, through your phones and computers, in this building here, and in your lives. Pray with us … and hear and be transformed by God’s Word.
8-10
Song of Praise – O God Our Help in Ages Past –
11
A Contemporary Word – Matshona Dhliwayo – a poet from Zimbabwe
“True wisdom is like an ocean; the deeper you go the greater the treasures you’ll find.”
12
BELIEVE
Through the Written Word,
And endorsed by our spoken word,
May we know Your Living Word,
Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
13
An Ancient and Ever-Present Word – Matthew 8:1-4; 16-17
1 When Jesus came down from the mountainside, large crowds followed him. 2 A man with leprosycame and knelt before him and said, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.”
143 Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. “I am willing,” he said. “Be clean!” Immediately he was cleansed of his leprosy. 4 Then Jesus said to him, “See that you don’t tell anyone. But go, show yourself to the priest and offer the gift Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.” …
1516 When evening came, many who were demon-possessed were brought to him, and he drove out the spirits with a word and healed all the sick. 17 This was to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet Isaiah [53:4]: “He took up our infirmities and bore our diseases.” [This was the scripture verse that opened Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ” 2004 movie.]
12
Think of a time when you felt left out of a group, felt like you did not belong, felt like you were not good enough. When we feel these feelings – we can empathize with the man with leprosy.
But I imagine not many of us have gone through something so dramatic as to be completely socially exiled, physically healed, and then reintegrated into the community that, for so long, feared and shunned us.
Can you imagine why this man would want to go back to the Temple? The worshiping community, despite its shortcomings, must have offered something to this child of God that he could not find somewhere else. What kind of hope and healing do we come to religion seeking?
This story invites us to think about what our communities offer to those in pain, those seeking healing and touch: how are we reaching out to people in pain? Are we acknowledging their suffering in our preaching and worship? In what ways do we stigmatize certain kinds of pain? How are we promoting physical health, wholeness, and healing?
Jesus’ touch of the leper was an outrageous act. By doing it, He signaled that these people (likely a mixture of folks with everything from boils to simple eczema), were not outside of the Kingdom of God, and they should not be outside of the love of the community itself. They are family, worthy of touch and inclusion.
This text also invites us to consider the ways our community excludes others, the boundaries we create, the boundaries we transcend. The leper was considered unclean. It does make sense, doesn’t it, that a community would fear a person with a skin disease. What if it was contagious? Communities create boundaries for good reasons, for self-preservation (think masks and six-foot separation) and to create a strong sense of identity and purpose (Christians do not worship anyone /-thing other than Almighty God!).
The problem is when our boundaries go unchecked and unquestioned.
Think about racial divides – fear of homeless or addicted – social hierarchies of skin-color, income-level, education, sex, etc. Those are boundaries most of us have created or at least been complicit in, but they are boundaries which our Savior and Lord, the Healer and Reconciler, forbids!
Jesus crosses social boundaries in every way imaginable. Jesus teaches us that the boundaries we thought were helping us might actually be hurting us and hurting others.
Look around this community, who is missing? How do we include or exclude people who long to belong?
Friends, we are all treasured by God. We are beautiful. We belong. How can we help people feel this deeply?
16
ASK
III
“Make Us Holy, Make us Whole”
Prayer Page –
Healer of our every ill,
especially our malady of separation and fear,
we come before you to make our petitions known.
Hear our cries for healing of body, mind, and spirit.
We know that already You are at work among us,
showing us the way to recovery from the toxicities and grief of our time.
As demolished pieces that are treasured when found,
we trust that beauty from brokenness is possible when we seek to bind together that which is wounded.
We pray especially for those who have experienced the physical loss of family and friends in the pandemic
and those who are still suffering the consequences of the illness.
We pray for each person who suffers in body in other ways –
weariness from inactivity or weariness from over-activity in this time.
We pray for those whose treatment of maladies have been put on hold and
for those who suffer isolation in their illness, whatever the cause.
We pray grateful thanks for the medical staff everywhere around the world who have shown unbelievable strength and stamina
and we mourn the demise of too many caregivers who risked their lives for our sake.
18-20
We pray this day for … [call out a name or a situation]
21 [Lord’s Prayer] Amen.
III Make Us Holy, Make us Whole
22
– Offering (4449 N Nevada St, Spokane, 99207 ; or click HERE or text 833-976-1333, code “Lidgerwood”)
23
KNOW
The words of Jesus we heard in this week’s healing story were “I do choose. Be made clean!” Faced with a request, and given the choice, Jesus chooses to say “yes.” And He says “yes” to each precious and treasured life. Recovered wholeness is offered to everyone and will look different for each one.
24
I invite you to look at the beach glass in the bottles, notice the worn edges and the color, the texture and thickness. Recognize it as a treasure that is completely unique, which of course it is. …
Now shift your thinking to your own rough edges. What broken edges in your own life need help? What will you do in this Lent season to focus on healing of body, mind, and spirit?
25-27
Song of Commitment – Just As I Am, without One Plea!
28
RESPOND
IV
“Jesus, Savior, Lord, Now to You I Come” –
“Saranam is a regional language in India which translates to English as “Refuge”
- And fair warning to those at home – our voices may not sync up with the recorded piano,
- so you may want to quiet your speakers…
Next Sunday, like we did today – please RSVP to us if you plan to attend so we can properly set up – and please CALL IN or email or text – so we can share with you what the plans will be – whether we will be allowed to continue to meet or not.
30
We close with this benediction: Now go with confidence as “Treasures of God,”
recovering God’s depth of love for all and our joy of living in this world.
May the words of Jesus ring in our ears: “I do choose you.”
And may the Holy Spirit hover, move, and deliver salve to our souls
and a spring in our step. Amen.
Resources:
Bell, Chuck; Music Studio; 2021.
McFee, Marcia; Holy Vessels: A Lenten Season of Recovery; Worship Design Studio; 2021.
lidgerwoodpresbychurch 