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Mark Wheeler
Matthew 8:5-13
“A Lenten Season of Recovery: Safe Keeping!”
2nd Sunday in Lent, 02/28/2021
Lidgerwood Presbyterian Church
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GATHER
Today, We continue our Lenten “season of recovery” as we focus on health as essential to our spiritual lives. We are, each of us, created a precious and holy vessel of embodied love. We have been through an irksome 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.
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“Holy Vessels” – THRESHOLD
God gathers us as a Beachcomber gathers and marvels at every precious surviving piece of beach glass she finds. We are never alone, we are never lost to the One who seeks humanity’s wholeness. We affirm our commitment to be the Body of Christ that knows we cannot be personally healed until we see the interconnected community as part of the process of healing. Jesus has the power to re-vision the family of God in which false boundaries are overcome. In a year of devastating loss of livelihood, we consider the economic health that re-imagines status quo.
“Holy Vessels” – THRESHOLD – continues
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APPROACH
Let us acknowledge our need to restore, repair, renew our Holy Vessels, which include the communities of which we are a part. Let us pray:
God of All,
You created us for each other. You set in us a yearning for companionship and
an empathy that binds us together, protecting each other and delighting in one another.
Yet too often we have broken down our relationships instead of building them up.
We have been set against one another with the lie of scarcity.
We have built systems and economies that widen the gap of resources
rather than safeguarding equitable practices.
Too many, and growing numbers, are suffering hardship, food insecurity, joblessness.
We cannot fathom the proportions of loss and so we look away,
sometimes even from the need in our own community.
Help us, Healer. Show us our empathy. Forgive our complacence.
Move us to move, one step at a time, toward greater care for one another.
In this silence, we sense and acknowledge our yearning for wholeness.
. . . [Silence]
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“Holy Vessels” – 1x
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Know this: God’s love and security is meant for all people … No. Matter. What.
We are capable of sharing our light and not running out of “enough”.
Christ’s hospitality that breaks through false boundaries points the way.
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 Peace 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.
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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.
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Song of Praise – A Wonderful Savior Is Jesus Our Lord – Lilly Haeger, Donna Stone, Micki Worden
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A Contemporary Word – Coretta Scott King –
“The greatness of a community is most accurately measured by the compassionate actions of its members.”
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BELIEVE
Through the Written Word,
And endorsed by our spoken word,
May we know Your Living Word,
Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
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An Ancient and Ever-Present Word – Matthew 8:5-13
5 When Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him, asking for help. 6 “Lord,” he said, “my servant lies at home paralyzed, suffering terribly.”
7 Jesus said to him, “Shall I come and heal him?”
8 The centurion replied, “Lord, I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. But just say the word, and my servant will be healed. 9 For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and that one, ‘Come,’ and he comes. I say to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.”
1410 When Jesus heard this, he was amazed and said to those following him, “Truly I tell you, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith. 11 I say to you that many will come from the east and the west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. 12 But the subjects of the kingdom will be thrown outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
13 Then Jesus said to the centurion, “Go! Let it be done just as you believed it would.” And his servant was healed at that moment.
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When was the last time you approached someone you highly respect and admire, and assumed that that person would simply just grant an outlandish request you wanted to make? Right? What nerve? That takes big “b-oldness”!
But this Centurion does exactly that. His boldness was an enactment of his faith and Jesus responds to it by healing the paralytic. In granting his request, Jesus is again transcending cultural boundaries in extraordinary ways. This army commander, a Gentile, a non-Jew, is not a part of the community of Jesus followers. And the servant for whom he is advocating is a Gentile and a slave, “the ultimate nobody”. None of this matters to Jesus. Jesus came to bring salvation to everyone – it’s what Calvinist, Reformed, theologians call God’s “preceptive” will – He wills that no-one should perish, ”God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son”. Jesus longs for the community to grow.
Do we have the strength and the boldness to approach Jesus directly, to appeal to Jesus on behalf of others?
In what ways do we approach Jesus? Do we believe that through Jesus, we can bring healing to our communities?
This story is also about real eschatological hope and healing, end-times hope of glory and reconciliation; it’s about the in-breaking of the Kingdom of God. The reference to the people gathering from east and west is, predicting eschatological joy, fellowship, and bounty. In other words, this story is a vision of the Kingdom in which all God’s people come together to enjoy one another and feast at the Table of God. God gathers us. God longs for us to be together and for us to all be safe and whole.
And God gives us agency to help bring this vision to fruition. This is what Martin Luther King’s “Dream” was all about!
In what ways do we, how does LPC, live out this vision? In what ways are we bringing people together? How are we, through the power of Jesus Christ, bringing healing and wholeness to our communities?
Our bodies are connected to other bodies. God gathers us. God calls us to be gatherers. We long for communities of recovery and none of us are free until all of us are free.
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.
And this story confirms that Jesus is there for us, He is right there for you! He heals and He comforts and He calls us to be His presence for those around us – even those on the outside.
Can we be healed? [We can!] And can we be God’s healing presence in our hurting world?[We can!]
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ASK
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“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 broken pieces scattered and separated,
we trust that You are seeking us, gathering us into wholeness,
and calling us to join You in the quest.
We pray especially for those who have experienced
the loss of livelihoods and economic security
and are feeling helpless to care for their families.
We pray for those whose businesses have gone under
or are on the precipice between survival or closure.
We pray for those whose disparity of resources
has been made even more pronounced during this pandemic.
We pray grateful thanks for the efforts of all who have been searching for solutions
and have given generously for months of their time and resources to alleviate the suffering.
We ask for encouragement and passion to re-evaluate
how we as a church can help now and into the future.
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We pray this day for … [call out a name or a situation]
20 [Lord’s Prayer] Amen.
III Make Us Holy, Make us Whole
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– Offering (4449 N Nevada St, Spokane, 99207 ; or click HERE, or text 833-976-1333, code “Lidgerwood”)
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KNOW
The words of Jesus we heard in this week’s healing story were “I will come!” Faced with a request, Jesus makes a move to seek out, to come to help one who was previously seen to be outside of help’s embrace. He moves outward to gather in and heal someone unlikely to have crossed His path otherwise. All can be within God’s circle of Safe Keeping.
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I invite you to look at the beach glass which has been put in the bottles. Think about the people you have encountered or heard about in the last few months who are suffering lack of support. What could we do to reach out and to focus on healing of the parts of the human community we don’t spend time thinking about enough? To what part of our community shall we say “I will come…” ? . …
Now shift your thinking to your own need to be cared for. What do you need to feel safe? What connections do you need to strengthen to heal any isolation you may feel? If you are in need of something, consider this an invitation to let someone know what you need without feeling embarrassment or shame. Jesus invites us, always, to ask.
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Song of Commitment – Living for Jesus a Life that Is True! Diana Nelson, Deanna Peden
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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.
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We close with this benediction: Now go with confidence that the Holy Beachcomber is
gathering us for “Safe Keeping”,
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 will come.”
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.
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