Saturday, October 24, 2020

Sermon for Worship Service for Sunday, Oct. 25, 2020

 

Sermon: October 25, 2020         When We Mismanage God’s Expectations         Matt 22:34-46         Rev. Peter Hofstra

            Our passage today is in two contrasting parts.  The first is, I hope, very familiar to us.  It is the what is expected of us as Christians.  It is also the whole law, love God and love neighbor.  Here is the give and take of yet another debate the leaders are having with Jesus.  In this case it is the Pharisees, the ‘teacher’ class of the Jewish faith and law.  Their question, Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest? 

            Then it is Jesus’ turn.  He asks them what they think about the Messiah.  Whose Son is the Messiah?  Their response is that the Messiah is the Son of David.  That tracks with what we know about the birth of Jesus.  He was born in the City of David, for Joseph, his father, was of the house and lineage of David.  Even more, in the gospels there are two genealogies that connect Jesus back to David.  Both come down to Joseph and then to Jesus, but they are different.  The best explanation I have heard is that one of these comes down through Mary’s family, but the practice of the day was to list by father.  So Jesus is connected to David. 

            And the Pharisees respond according to their tradition, that the Messiah is, indeed, the Son of David.  To which Jesus responds, “Okay, the riddle me this.  Why does David say, in Psalm 110, “The Lord said to my lord, ‘Sit at my right hand while I put your enemies under your feet.’?”  Or, to sort out the titles and pronouns, “The Messiah said to me, ‘Sit at my right hand while I put your enemies under your feet.’”  Then Jesus asks the Pharisees, “And if David called the Messiah Lord, how could the Messiah be his Son?”  In that culture, the son did not outrank the father.  It was not done. 

            So Jesus has just taken their most profound expectations of the Messiah and knocked them down by looking at what the Bible truly says about things.  And the wind up is that none of those present could give him an answer and, after that moment, they did not ask him any more questions.  They may not have asked Jesus any more questions, but I think there are some legitimate questions that we can ask today.  And, although it sounds disrespectful, those first questions boil down to something like, “So what?”  It might be a little less dismissive to phrase it “So what does that mean for us?”

            To understand what it means for them will help us understand.  “Son of David” is a warrior’s title, because David was a warrior king.  He conquered to create he largest empire the Jews were ever to hold in their time as a nation.  And though blessed by God, the Lord would not let David build God’s temple, because his hands were too bloodied from all the wars.  The building of the temple would fall to his son, Solomon, who reigned in the peace won by David’s wars.  In the politics at the time of Jesus, the Promised Land under the thumb of the Romans, and the expectation of the Messiah, as the Son of David, was a Warrior solution to the Roman occupation.  In fact, that first verse of Psalm 110 has special appeal.  “The Messiah said to David, I am going to put your enemies under your feet,” is considered a prophecy of hope for their present age.

            This returns to the beginning of our passage.  What is the whole law?  Love God and love neighbor.  This is not done by the conquest of a new David over the oppressive Romans.  In fact, the work of Jesus in the earliest church is going to cross over into the Roman world within the first years after the coming of the Holy Spirit.  In the mindset of the leaders, the love of God is expressed in God’s granting to them of the Promised Land.  God’s love is expressed in restoring their freedom in that promised land.  Jesus would say something profoundly different.  No greater love does a man have than to give up his life for his friends.  That is the love that underlies Jesus’ death and resurrection.  It is by love that Jesus died for us, by love that he rose, for us.  It is God’s plan to restore us to right relationship with our Father in heaven.

            In the Old Testament, the precedent for violence leading to holiness, leading to sanctification, came when the people entered the Promised Land.  God gave them the land and led them into battle to conquer it.  That is amply demonstrated at Jericho, where the Lord caused the walls to come a tumbling down.  The call to drive out the Canaanites, God made the people holy through warfare.  While we are not called to actual military conflict, the process of sanctification can feel like a culture war today.  There is a call to exclude and to include various groups in our society by different branches of the church because that is the right thing to do.  And we don’t need to get into lists, we know these cultural battles.  And they turn into political battles, especially as we run up to the election in another week and a half.

            But Jesus sweeps that all aside in how he demonstrates the way of sanctification, the way of being made holy.  It is in that first summary statement of the law, love God with your mind, body, soul, and strength (if I may paraphrase).  He loved God all the way to the cross, for us.  And in the love from God, we are made holy.  In fact, sanctification is “a work of God’s grace, whereby we, who God has, before the foundation of the world, chosen to be holy, are, in time, through the powerful operation of God’s Spirit, applying the death and resurrection of Christ unto us, renewed in our whole person after the image of God; having the seeds of repentance unto life, and all other saving graces, put into our hearts, and those graces so stirred up, increased and strengthened, as that we more and more die unto sin, and rise into newness of life.”

            It is the transformation of the whole person, the renewal into the image of God (in which we are created according to Genesis).  And that is what we come to church to celebrate, to extend, to give thanks unto the Lord through our worship of our God.  And here is where we have to tease apart the work of God’s Spirit working to apply the death and resurrection of Christ unto us and the work of being citizens of this wonderful nation where we are guaranteed the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  And while I am blessed to be a citizen of this country and to enter into the spirited (and mean-spirited) debates that go on, while my point of view is based in who I am as a child of God, it is a mistake when sanctification gets mixed up with the freedom of expression.

            I will be frank that I have fallen into that trap.  Point to a public sin or a public wrong and presume it is the call of our holiness to go out and make a change.  That is not sanctification.  That is missional activity, that is evangelism, that is social justice.  All of which are important to the Christian and to the church, but they are not the most important.

            The most important is, as the definition of sanctification says, that we die unto sin more and more and rise into newness of life.  The first focus of church is to share and strengthen our salvation, to know and understand more and more wonderfully what it means that Jesus died for us.  It is a transformation of the individual and the body of believers into people who are more holy, closer to fulfilling the perfection that shall come to us at the end of time.

            In times and places where the church has been oppressed, gathering for worship was a time of profound peace in the knowledge that the power of God protects no matter what might happen.  One of the dangers of a free and open society is that we lose the visceral feeling of knowing that God is in control.  We can know it intellectually.  We can agree to its truth.  But if we are not careful, we can lose the heart-felt conviction of what it means that God is in control.

            One of the most powerful opportunities for sanctification that comes to us on a Sunday is the Sabbath rest.  It is a holy rest, laid down when God rested on the seventh day of creation.  Imagine the visceral feel of God’s power when we can truly lay down the burdens of the week and come to God in worship?  Because America is a beautiful place to be, but it is the busiest place I know of.  How often can we really slow down?  On purpose?  Because God gave us the opportunity?

            Well, according to the latest statistics I could find, Sunday is an opportunity for two thirds of us.  One third of Americans work on Sunday.  But something Covid pushed us into was the online service.  When the Sabbath rest cannot come to some of us on a Sunday, the service is there for when we can. 

            So God’s work in us toward holiness offers two disentanglements from the nation around us.  The first is the assurance of God’s power for us against a culture filled with sin.  That is one consequence of living in a free society.  And I would prefer the freedom of speech and expression that we enjoy in this country over its suppression.  But there is a price to be paid in the sex, violence, exploitation, and all the rest that ‘sells’ in the media.  So the church can then become a place where we can step from that for awhile, where we can come into the healing and forgiving presence of the almighty to bring a measure of God’s love upon us. 

            God’s work toward holiness disentangles us from the craziness that is the culture around us.  Everything is always going at full speed, and getting faster.  It is like Elijah waiting on the Lord on the mountaintop.  There was a ferocious storm and a wind that shattered rocks, but the Lord was in the still, small voice.  Worship is the place to slow down, to be very deliberate in the moments we share in the shadow of the divine.  In the music, in the prayers, in the message from our Holy Scriptures of the greater truth we have in Jesus Christ.

            There is a metaphor that I have shared, as a chaplain, with our police that speaks to this.  The officer is a sponge.  He and she go out into the community and they absorb all the crime and corruption and all that is bad and worse in our culture.  In the beginning, that sponge is clean and can absorb the chronic trauma to which police officers are witnesses to.  But if the officer cannot find a way to wring out that sponge at the end of the shift, to take all the sin and evil to which they were exposed and find a place to drain it away, their sponge is just going to fill and get dirty and their lives as officers are going to be drowned in the misery of the human experience. 

            We too are sponges that take in all the good, bad, and indifference that the world has to offer, prayerfully not on a level like law enforcement.  But we have this place to come and to worship and to wring out that sponge, knowing that the Lord will cleanse that sponge in God’s holiness, that we will be cleansed in God’s holiness and be made ready for another week.  For the police officer, the mechanism by which they take care of themselves may not be the church.  And that is okay so long as they are wringing out that sponge.  I cannot think of a better way of cleansing the heart and the soul than coming to our Lord.

            The leadership in Jerusalem, they had expectations for their Messiah.  They wanted a war to drive out their enemies.  But Jesus had other ideas.  By his death and resurrection, in God’s call, our lives are ever renewed, dying to sin and living to Christ.  That is our sanctification.  But there are a lot of other voices out there, in and out of the church, that are going to seek to call us away.  And I will confess that I have let some of those voices come into the very interpretation of God’s Word.  But when that distracts us from the purpose and peace and joy of worship-even for the best of intentions, that is something that even the pastor has to watch out for.

            There is ample opportunity to take on the woes of the world, to fight the good fight with all our might, to seek justice and mercy.  There is plenty to fill our sponge.  But here, in this moment of worship, we come to the wellspring of our life and faith, we come to our Lord.  Here we are cleansed, here we receive a measure of God’s holiness, here we come together in joy to celebrate the gift of our faith.  Here is where we come to communally love our God with all our mind, body, soul, strength, and spirit.  Amen.

Order of Worship for Sunday, Oct. 25, 2020

 

First Presbyterian Church

October 25, 2020

10:00 AM

Worship Service Unified Order of Worship

  

CALL TO WORSHIP

Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations.

Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.

For a thousand years in your sight are like yesterday when it is past, or like a watch in the night.

  Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, so that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.

Let us worship the Living God.

 

Hymn Today: “Lead On, O King Eternal”

1. Lead on, O King eternal, the day of march has come; henceforth in fields of conquest thy tents shall be our home. Through days of preparation thy grace has made us strong; and now, O King eternal, we lift our battle song.

 2. Lead on, O King eternal, we follow, not with fears, for gladness breaks like morning where'er thy face appears. Thy cross is lifted o'er us, we journey in its light; the crown awaits the conquest; lead on, O God of might.

     PRAYER OF CONFESSION (In Unison)

 Lord, we come to you with questions that are not genuine, seeking only your affirmation of our behavior and opinions. We assume our own righteousness and quickly condemn others in your name, forgetting that our ways are not your ways, our judgment not your judgment. We do not take time to examine our hearts and seek your will. We jump to conclusions and neglect a life of prayerful discernment. Help us, gracious God, to humble ourselves before you and listen. Give us the courage to hear your corrective word and act upon it in ways that reveal our love for our Savior, Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray. Amen.

 *SILENT PRAYERS OF CONFESSION

 

 

*THE GLORIA PATRI 

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost; As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end.  Amen.

ASSURANCE OF PARDON

Approved by God to be entrusted with the message of the gospel, in joy we proclaim that through Jesus Christ we are forgiven. The old life is gone, a new life has begun. Thanks be to God! Amen.

INVITATION

LESSONS

Psalm 110  Of David. A Psalm.
The Lord says to my lord, ‘Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool.’

The Lord sends out from Zion your mighty sceptre. Rule in the midst of your foes. Your people will offer themselves willingly on the day you lead your forces on the holy mountains.
From the womb of the morning, like dew, your youth will come to you.  The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind, ‘You are a priest for ever according to the order of Melchizedek.’

The Lord is at your right hand; he will shatter kings on the day of his wrath.  He will execute judgement among the nations, filling them with corpses; he will shatter heads over the wide earth.
He will drink from the stream by the path; therefore he will lift up his head.

Matthew 22:34-46

34When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, 35and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. 36“Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” 37He said to him, “’You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ 38This is the greatest and first commandment. 39And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”

41Now while the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them this question: 42“What do you think of the Messiah? Whose son is he?” They said to him, “The son of David.” 43He said to them, “How is it then that David by the Spirit calls him Lord, saying, 44‘The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet”’? 45If David thus calls him Lord, how can he be his son?” 46No one was able to give him an answer, nor from that day did anyone dare to ask him any more questions. 

SERMON:                      When We Mismanage God’s Expectations                   Rev. Peter Hofstra

AFFIRMATION OF FAITH (from The Westminster Shorter Catechism)

Q. What is the sum of the Ten Commandments?

A. The sum of the Ten Commandments is: to love the Lord our God with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our strength, and with all our mind; and our neighbor as ourselves.

PASSING OF THE PEACE

THE OFFERING OF OUR TITHES & GIFTS

If unable to drop the tithe and offering at church for Sunday morning worship, it can be mailed to First Presbyterian Church, 45 Market St., Perth Amboy, NJ  08861 or sent via Venmo, search email address office@fpcperthamboy.org 

*DOXOLOGY  

Praise God, from whom all blessings flow; Praise Him, all creatures here below; Praise Him above, ye heavenly host; Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.  Amen.

*OFFERTORY PRAYER

JOYS AND CONCERNS

PRAYERS OF THE PEOPLE

It is in the sanctuary that we share and lift requests to the Lord as a community.  Online, we are deliberately more general, as a community, in the joys and concerns we lift, knowing that, almost like the Kingdom of Heaven, things remain on the Internet forever and we are very aware of people’s privacy.  However, people are encouraged to lift their requests to the Lord in the privacy of where they are viewing the service.  In either case, the appropriate response to these requests is “Lord, Hear Our Prayer”.

*LORD’S PRAYER

 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.  Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil; for Thine is the kingdom and the power, and the glory forever.  Amen.

SONG OF RESPONSE: “Love Divine, All Love Excelling”

1. Love divine, all loves excelling, joy of heaven, to earth come down; fix in us thy humble dwelling; all thy faithful mercies crown! Jesus thou art all compassion, pure, unbounded love thou art; visit us with thy salvation; enter every trembling heart.

2. Breathe, O breathe thy loving Spirit into every troubled breast! Let us all in thee inherit; let us find that second rest. Take away our bent to sinning; Alpha and Omega be; end of faith, as its beginning, set our hearts at liberty.

3. Come, Almighty to deliver, let us all thy life receive; suddenly return and never, nevermore thy temples leave. Thee we would be always blessing, serve thee as thy hosts above, pray and praise thee without ceasing, glory in thy perfect love.

4. Finish, then, thy new creation; pure and spotless let us be. Let us see thy great salvation perfectly restored in thee; changed from glory into glory, till in heaven we take our place, till we cast our crowns before thee, lost in wonder, love, and praise.

*BENEDICTION

*THREE FOLD AMEN

POSTLUDE    

 

 

Elements of Order of Worship drawn from The Presbyterian Outlook, written by Jill Duffield.

Worship for the Sabbath marked on Sunday, Oct. 25, 2020

Saturday, October 17, 2020

Worship for the Weekend of Sunday, October 18, 2020

Sermon for the Worship Service for Weekend of October 18, 2020

 

October 18, 2020          “A Simple Test to Define Our Faith”     Matthew 22: 15-22

Rev. Peter Hofstra

            It is a simple setup.  Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.  Or so they thought.  Over the last few weeks, we have read how Jesus and the leadership went head to head.  The leaders have a specific motive, get Jesus arrested and executed by the court of public opinion.  Jesus also has an agenda.  It is to preach it like there is no tomorrow.  Because come Maundy Thursday, there will be-for 3 days. 

            The setup is this.  Either Jesus will have to commit sedition against the Romans or he will have to commit treason against his own people.  The question is a simple one.  Do we pay taxes to the emperor, or not?  To protest these taxes is to protest the emperor, sedition against the man proclaimed a god by the Romans, speech that is designed to incite people against their overlords-punished very quickly by death.  However, if Jesus tells them that they should pay their taxes, he is picking the emperor-god over God the Father, treason against his own people and the God he claims to speak for.  See how they couch their question, do we pay taxes to the emperor, one who is seen as a deity by the Romans, a deity that is in competition with God the Father of the Jews.  This should be the no win situation.

            But Jesus sees right through it, asks for a denarius, the coin that represents the day’s wages for the typical working man.  Whose image is on it?  Whose title?  The emperor’s.  So render to the emperor what is the emperor’s and render to God what is God’s.  The bible says they were amazed.  I prefer the translation dumbfounded. 

            This is one of those passages that may have lost its punch because it has been read so often.  It is Jesus at his argumentative best.  He is given two terrible choices, and he charges right up the middle, destroying yet another of the arguments that the leaders have prepared to try and entrap him.  And Jesus knows full well that this is going to have to happen, but its going to be on his terms and not on theirs.

            So Jesus has given us the gift of eternal life through his own death and resurrection.  This is the centerpiece of our faith, the lynchpin of God’s plan.  But lets take what Jesus has done for us and return to this story.  Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, pay your taxes essentially, do what is demanded by the government authorities.  Render unto God what is God’s.  What are we to render unto God? 

            At the time of Jesus, there were certainly taxes beyond those to support the Emperor.  There were taxes that supported the temple as well, rendering monetary support to God.  But rendering unto God is far more than the temple tax or what we ought to support the church in our tithes and offerings.  It defines the whole life movement that is Christianity.  What we do as Christians is what we render unto God. 

            We have spent the last four weeks talking about the Kingdom of Heaven.  I hope we have decided it is where we should be as Christians.  How should then we act in that Kingdom?  To get down to it, how shall we then be made holy in the Kingdom of Heaven?  The theological term for this is sanctification, to be made holy.  How are we sanctified?  How are we to do properly by what we have received from Jesus?  And the phrasing of that question is so important.

            We have received the gift of salvation through our Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ.  It is irrelevant to what we did in this life.  It cannot be earned, only received.  Which redefines our motivations.  In rendering unto God, it means no tit for tat, no you scratch my back and I will scratch yours, no doing something nice in expectation of something nice in return.  We do something out of love for love’s sake. 

            How does the church respond to this question?  There are two big ideas about how to accomplish this rendering and a third smaller one, but still powerful.  The first two ideas correspond broadly to the liberal or mainstream and the conservative or evangelical sides of the faith.  We have received some very interesting election material at church that highlights the distinctives.  Now, be forewarned, this is not going to turn into a political tirade.  This week’s text helped create a greater perspective. 

            On the one side, I received resources from the PCUSA.  In broad strokes, it is about the big movements for changing things for the better in this nation.  There is the Peacemaking ministry of the church, which covers a wide spectrum of programs that support making things better in communities around the nation.  This includes issues of poverty, of social equality, of justice.  We have an office at the United Nations tasked with considering these sorts of issues on a worldwide scale, we have a presence in Washington DC.  We have PDA, Presbyterian Disaster Assistance, that assists locally and around the world.  Go to the Beatitudes at the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5 and there is an agenda laid out.  By the grace and love of God, they seek to change the world on a big scale.

            On the other side, I received a voting guide, defining issues and the stances of candidates on those issues, sponsored by a national evangelical Christian organization.  The mindset is different.  Instead of moving God’s love at the scale of the big problems of the world, God’s love is focused on the souls of the individual, the call for a personal relationship with Jesus as Lord and Savior.  The issues are drawn from Scriptural interpretation as those affecting people giving their lives to Christ, how being a Christian changes our lives, and how the politics of the nation follows that. 

            Unfortunately, there are two huge consequences to seeking political support for the expression of our faith in what we render unto God.  The first is that all the worst excesses of political campaigning, negative ads, mudslinging, dirty tricks, the hallmarks of an electoral system in place since our nation’s founding, these spill over onto the efforts of liberal, evangelical, whatever faith-based group that seeks to get into the political arena.  Politics is a dirty, sinful business. 

            The second consequence is that the church gets caught up in the polarization of the politics of the day.  It is one thing when we are in a time of bipartisanship and cooperation.  Those are the hallmarks of a Christian way of doing things, we help one another in love and respect.  But when the politics of the land are polarized, defined as “us or them”, to a point where for me to be right means I am on the side of good, and you have to be wrong, and therefore on the side of evil, such attitudes infect the Church as well.  That is where we are right now.  It is almost inevitable that it will affect one’s point of view. 

            In reality, when it comes to rendering unto God what is God’s, both the mainstream and the evangelical “sides” of the church are a lot closer in their attitudes.  The desire is to reach out into the community and into the nation with the love of God to change things for the better.  Jesus preached on the ills of a sin-sick society and Jesus preached on the ills of the sin-sick soul, both of which find relief in the gift of salvation.  The commonality of the church in that it leads both points of view out into the political arena-and in the politics, there is division.

            This is not the usual way of church in the world.  In most places, the Christian faith is far more private.  Rendering unto God what is God’s focuses on the building up and understanding of the members of the community.  This is the heritage of the Presbyterian Church.  We ask questions like “what is my only comfort in life and in death?” and “what is the chief end of humanity?”  These are confessional questions, because we are a confessional church, these two in particular from the Heidelberg and the Westminster Catechisms, two of several documents assembled from Christian history that mark the deep thinkers of the faith in different times and different circumstances.

            Right worship, knowing our faith, raising our children to know this faith, it is neither about the grand conversion experience in one’s life nor the battle against the culture level sins that exist around us.  It is about developing our faith, knowing that we are sinners, and rendering unto God our best efforts to live lives worthy of our God.  It is not about involving the church, as an organization, in the cultural and political affairs of the day.  It is not that such churches do not care about people coming to Jesus or care about the big issues of the world, but what is rendered unto God has a different focus.  What are the important things in our relationship with God?  Worship, understanding our faith and its implications, living in covenant with the Lord, understanding rightly what the Bible teaches and how our history and heritage inform that understanding.

            It is from there that Christians then enter into the public sphere, enter into politics, living out their faith and their convictions.  The rendering unto God is in the practice of faith within, not in its projection outside.  And the question that is most important is not “which on is better”, but rather, “which one is us?”  Sanctification is the process by which we, as Christians, are made holy.  It is done by what we render unto God.  It finds different expressions in different churches and different church traditions.  

            We live in a time where there are so many resources, so many experts, so many plans, so many books to help the church figure out “who they are”, in order to be successful.  We hear ‘churchy’ sounding words like ‘vision statement’ and ‘mission statement’, things we ‘need’ in order to be successful.  As a business, developing and committing to such statements can lead to success by focusing the business on what it is supposed to be doing.  But too often, a mission study and the development of such statements in the church are to answer the question “What should we be doing?” when the question should be “What do we render unto God?”  How do we sanctify?  How are we made holy?

            Sharing Jesus to bring people out of their sinful lives, tackling the cultural level sins of this day and age, building up the members of the community faith to know and to worship and to work to give ourselves ever more to God’s love, these are all worthy answers to the question of what we shall render unto God.  The problem is when we have answers, but we have forgotten the question.  Politics these days is about winning, so faith in politics inevitably gets shaped by the means and ends of the political process.  It is the pitfall of seeking to render unto God in the public arena.  On the other, hand, building a community of faith, focusing on right worship, right theology, on the personal and community efforts against sin in our lives, it can quickly lead to the creation of a fortress.  It becomes so much about us that it fails to consider ‘them’ in any meaningful way.  See, sin enters into everything, even the best decisions a church seeks to make about what we render unto God.

            But be reminded, Jesus died for us so that, through Him, we have been given the grace of God to be forgiven our sins that we may inherit eternal life.  And our Christian walk is NOT about what we have to do to deserve this gift.  The gift is offered to all.  What we render unto God is then the process that God works in our hearts as individuals and as a community to make us more holy in God’s sight, to sanctify us, to prepare us for when the Kingdom of Heaven is made permanent in a renewed creation. 

We have to save people from hell?  God saves, not us.  We have to save the poor?  God saves, not us.  What we have to do is submit ourselves to God’s cleansing love and surrender ourselves to God’s gracious salvation so that God will be the ‘why’ and the ‘how’ of what we render unto God.  We must live out love and justice and mercy, but all as we walk humbly with our God.

These are the big ticket items of faith.  God justified us-God redefined justice for us in the mercy of Jesus’ death and resurrection.  Jesus died for his friends.  God glorifies us.  There is the promise that we will become children of God, not servants, and Jesus is the first-born of this family.  God sanctifies us.  God makes us holy.  “What then shall we render unto God?”  Let us live our lives into the understanding of God’s grace and love that we may know and discern what God has in store to sanctify us, to make us more holy, in and by and through God’s love.  Amen.      

Order of Worship for the Weekend of Sunday, Oct. 18, 2020

First Presbyterian Church

October 18, 2020

10:00 AM

Worship Service Unified Order of Worship

  

CALL TO WORSHIP

O sing to the Lord a new song; sing to the Lord, all the earth.

Sing to the Lord, bless God’s name; tell of God’s salvation from day to day.

For great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised;

God is to be revered above all gods; strength and beauty are in God’s sanctuary.

Let us worship the Living God

 

Hymn Today: “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God”

1. A mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark never failing; our helper he amid the flood of mortal ills prevailing. For still our ancient foe doth seek to work us woe; his craft and power are great, and armed with cruel hate, on earth is not his equal.

2. Did we in our own strength confide, our striving would be losing, were not the right man on our side, the man of God's own choosing. Dost ask who that may be? Christ Jesus, it is he; Lord Sabbaoth, his name, from age to age the same, and he must win the battle.

     PRAYER OF CONFESSION (In Unison)

 Lord, like those religious leaders long ago, we, too, have malice in our hearts. We wish ill upon those we do not like and fail to recognize our own shortcomings. We want to partition off our lives, offering you a portion of our loyalty, time and resources, when we are called to give our whole selves to you. Forgive our pettiness, our hard-heartedness and our stubbornness. Use our repentance as a means for the Spirit to work in us and remake us into a closer likeness of our Lord, Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray. Amen.

 *SILENT PRAYERS OF CONFESSION

*THE GLORIA PATRI 

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost; As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end.  Amen.

ASSURANCE OF PARDON

The Lord our God answers us and forgives us. The mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting. Friends, believe the good news, through Jesus Christ, we are forgiven. Amen.

INVITATION

LESSON: Matthew 22: 15-22

Matthew 22: 15-22  

22:15 Then the Pharisees went and plotted to entrap him in what he said.

22:16 So they sent their disciples to him, along with the Herodians, saying, "Teacher, we know that you are sincere, and teach the way of God in accordance with truth, and show deference to no one; for you do not regard people with partiality.

22:17 Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?"

22:18 But Jesus, aware of their malice, said, "Why are you putting me to the test, you hypocrites?

22:19 Show me the coin used for the tax." And they brought him a denarius.

22:20 Then he said to them, "Whose head is this, and whose title?"

22:21 They answered, "The emperor's." Then he said to them, "Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor's, and to God the things that are God's."

22:22 When they heard this, they were amazed; and they left him and went away.

SERMON:                      “What’s it Like? That Kingdom of Heaven?”                   Rev. Peter Hofstra

AFFIRMATION OF FAITH 

Affirmation of Faith (From: A Brief Statement of Faith)

In life and in death we belong to God.

Through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ,

the love of God,

and the communion of the Holy Spirit,

we trust in the one triune God,

the Holy One of Israel,

whom alone we worship and serve.

We trust in Jesus Christ,

Fully human, fully God.

Jesus proclaimed the reign of God:

preaching good news to the poor and release to the captives,

teaching by word and deed and blessing the children,

healing the sick and binding up the brokenhearted,

eating with outcasts, forgiving sinners,

and calling all to repent and believe the gospel.

Unjustly condemned for blasphemy and sedition,

Jesus was crucified,

suffering the depths of human pain

and giving his life for the sins of the world.

God raised this Jesus from the dead,

vindicating his sinless life,

breaking the power of sin and evil,

delivering us from death to life eternal.

PASSING OF THE PEACE

THE OFFERING OF OUR TITHES & GIFTS

If unable to drop the tithe and offering at church for Sunday morning worship, it can be mailed to First Presbyterian Church, 45 Market St., Perth Amboy, NJ  08861 or sent via Venmo, search email address office@fpcperthamboy.org 

*DOXOLOGY  

Praise God, from whom all blessings flow; Praise Him, all creatures here below; Praise Him above, ye heavenly host; Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.  Amen.

*OFFERTORY PRAYER

JOYS AND CONCERNS

PRAYERS OF THE PEOPLE

It is in the sanctuary that we share and lift requests to the Lord as a community.  Online, we are deliberately more general, as a community, in the joys and concerns we lift, knowing that, almost like the Kingdom of Heaven, things remain on the Internet forever and we are very aware of people’s privacy.  However, people are encouraged to lift their requests to the Lord in the privacy of where they are viewing the service.  In either case, the appropriate response to these requests is “Lord, Hear Our Prayer”.

*LORD’S PRAYER

 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.  Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil; for Thine is the kingdom and the power, and the glory forever.  Amen.

SONG OF RESPONSE: “Leaning on the Everlasting Arms”

1. What a fellowship, what a joy divine, leaning on the everlasting arms; what a blessedness, what a peace is mine, leaning on the everlasting arms.

Refrain: Leaning, leaning, safe and secure from all alarms; leaning, leaning, leaning on the everlasting arms.

2. O how sweet to walk in this pilgrim way, leaning on the everlasting arms; O how bright the path grows from day to day, leaning on the everlasting arms. (Refrain)

*BENEDICTION

*THREE FOLD AMEN

POSTLUDE    


Friday, October 9, 2020

Sermon for Sunday, October 11, 2020

 

 October 11, 2020    Rev. Peter Hofstra

            It seems like a harsh wedding to be at.  The first guest list has, in its entirety, blown off the king’s banquet.  In addition, some guests go so far as to kill the king’s messengers.  So, the king packs the place with replacement guests.  But there is one who did not dress for the occasion.  So he gets thrown out, not just out of the wedding, but bound hand and foot, thrown into the outer darkness, where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth.  And what is the tag line?  Many are called but few are chosen.

            Welcome to the Kingdom of Heaven, and to our parable.

            I get the first part.  The first guests are the leadership, replaced by the second set.  That has been Jesus’ theme.  What bothers me most is the man invited to the wedding banquet, singled out for not wearing wedding clothes, and, in a jump from parable to reality, HE is sent to hell.  It seems like an extreme reaction.  I know it was tongue in cheek, but I remember from my childhood when this passage was cited as why we should wear ‘our Sunday best’ because we are coming to worship God. 

            This is a twist on the parables Jesus has told up to now.  As he engages the leadership, this parable continues that they have betrayed their roles as God’s stewards of the Kingdom, this time as the guests who refuse to come to the wedding banquet of the King.  So new guests are brought in, previously the contrasting image of tax collectors and prostitutes, of sinners, who are given the Kingdom.   

            The twist is the guy who was invited, but did not dress for the occasion, did not respond in the right way.  The implication is that we get invited into the Kingdom only to be ejected again?  Or is this pushing too hard on the edges of the parable?  Imposing too much “reality” on a figurative story?

            Jesus makes it plain this is a comparison to the Kingdom of Heaven.  Which is established with the plan of God, achieved in the death and resurrection of Jesus.  Maybe that is why this language bothers me.  The other language of a divine wedding banquet is from Revelations, at the marriage of Jesus and the Church-when it is all done and no one will then be excluded because Sin and Death, Satan and Hell, all have been overthrown.

            In light of this parable, what actually happens to bring someone into the Kingdom of Heaven?  It is the double bind of the Christian faith.  On the one hand, the Bible teaches that God, who is all-powerful, has chosen us from before Creation.  Our names must be in the Book of Life to be admitted into the Renewed Jerusalem, according to Revelation 21: 27.  It is we who then accept the free gift of salvation in Jesus, we who call Jesus our Friend and Savior.  The theological term for that is ‘election’, we are the ‘elect’, elected by God for admittance into the Kingdom of Heaven. 

            Yes, that concept is confusing because for us, in a representative democracy, election has a very different meaning.  We elect those who will lead us, from the local School Board up to the Presidency, literally picking the most powerful person in the world every four years.  But in the church, we flip the concept.  God is the leader and creator of all things.  God elects us to be God’s children.  That is one side of the bind.

            Jesus’ parable seems to fly in the face of God’s election.  If all those people brought in as replacement guests were elect, how could one be thrown out?  This is the second part of the double blind.

            We place the second part of the double bind in the invitation we share each week.  We make the call to accept the gift of salvation purchased by the blood of Christ, to accept the free give of salvation.  We raise our children in a covenant community to accept that gift, given at their baptism, which they confirm to become full members of the church.  The doors are always open to those who give their hearts to Christ Jesus.  We have, to use a sticky phrase, the free will to choose Jesus as Friend and Savior.

            So, on the one hand, God has chosen me to be a part of God’s covenant community, and on the other, I choose to give my life to the Lord and enter into covenant with the Lord.  Both points can be found in the Bible.  The language of becoming a Christian is one of answering a call from God to accept Jesus.  Whether it is a person who turns from sin and accepts Christ for the first time, or a person standing up in church to confirm for themselves the covenant promises made in their baptism, it is taking the hand of our Savior to become a member of His church community.  And God has already decided who we are. 

            Returning to Jesus’ words.  Many are called.  In terms of the parable, this is the ingathering of all the people that the King insisted be brought into the wedding banquet.  But few are chosen.  The gentleman not in his wedding clothes-the implication is God chose Him, but the man did not choose God.   Which questions God’s ability to choose us, God’s perfection, God’s All-power.

            Welcome to the Kingdom of Heaven.

            In light of the double bind of faith, does this parable contain a contradiction?  In the freedom as the Creator, God chose us from before creation while creating us with freedom to choose God through Jesus Christ, so that we freely choose what God has already decided.  It reminds me of something that Henry Ford is credited with saying back when the mass production of the Model T.  You can have any color you want, so long as it is black. 

            The power in being chosen by God is in the assurance of our faith.  The Kingdom of Heaven cannot be taken from us.  We concluded last week’s sermon with the words of Romans 8, including promises that neither angel nor demon, nor anything can pull us from the Love of God.  That is because, in Love, God has chosen us.  In other words, nothing can take away my salvation.

            One way to read this parable is to take the purpose of God to its logical extreme.  What do I mean?  God has chosen the elect from before creation.  Our “pre-destiny” has been established, then another two-dollar word that you might have heard, predestination.  So the second set of people were predestined to come to the banquet, except that one guy.  He came, and the argument goes, he was predestined to be tossed into the outer darkness, into hell.  Thus, God has, in effect, a double predestination, some for the Kingdom of Heaven and some for Hell.

            It requires limiting God to human logic for this ‘double’ predestination to be argued.  But the Biblical witness puts God beyond human logic, into the mystery that God chooses us and we, in full freedom to and responsible for our choice, choose God as well.  Hell is not something we can blame on God.  But there is more to this decision-making.  As Paul said, “And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.”  Love is the act of creation.  To predestine someone for hell defies the Biblical precept that God is love, acts from love, loves all God’s children.  Coming to Christ is both/and, not either/or.  We both come freely into this relationship of love.

            Our parable is a wedding.  A marriage of love is an earthly example of our election.  The bride and groom come together with mutually expressed love, they pick each other.  In love, God has chosen us and we have chosen God.  The difference is divine, God expressed love for each of us before the Creation.   

            Welcome to the Kingdom of Heaven.

            Remember where Jesus is as he shares this parable.  He is on the cusp of entering the final, most painful journey of his life, to the Cross, for us.  His traditional route through the City of Jerusalem, it is called the Via Delarossa, the Way of Tears.  He wants the leaders and the people to understand what is happening under God’s plan.  And this is gospel, Good News, something passed along so that we will understand what is happening under God’s plan for the implementation of the Kingdom of Heaven.  He concludes by telling us many are called but few are chosen.

            Which leads to another mystery of God’s work.  How can we tell when someone is saved?  It is not like God has given out T-shirts, or had us tattooed or something.  Even in our very church pews, how do we know?  We don’t, but God does.  How do we know the outreach that we do as children of the Living God touches the life of another for Jesus Christ?  We don’t, but God does.  How do we know if the love we show to neighbor is in vain?  We don’t, but God does.  And God’s love is our assurance.

            What do we know?  Again from 1 Corinthians 13, we know the God who loves us through faith.  We know the God who saves us through hope.  We know the God who created us through love.  To know that we are chosen is to know the assurance of the Kingdom of Heaven.

            It also means that the work we do to build the Kingdom of Heaven is not by the uncertainty of our own hands, but in the full confidence of the hands of our God.  When we seek to show love, to show mercy, to seek justice, to make peace, there is a greater force than we can imagine behind that work.  How about a far more personal question?  What about my loved ones, my family and friends who are not a part of a Christian community, or have slidden away from that community?  Who don’t have the backing of fellow believers?  What can I know about that? 

            We can know that if it God’s will, our loved one is Chosen already, but they may not have gotten there yet.  And if our picture of God is as an Old Testament punishing Judge, that could be a frightening consideration.  But that is not the God of the Bible.  Our God is loving, our God is merciful, our God is just.  Our God knows what we cannot know.  Our God sees what we cannot see.  Our God moves in ways we cannot begin to understand.  Our God places the free gift won through Jesus before all.  

            So while there is an outer darkness out there, one where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth, there are also truly evil people out there.  There are consequences, in this world and the next. 

            But at the end of the day, being in the Kingdom of Heaven is about assurance of faith, not fear of punishment.  It is about an all-powerful God who loves us and knows us by name.  It is about God coming down to earth, coming as Jesus, taking on the form of a servant, and carrying out God’s plan to save us.  It is about Jesus promising us another who will stay with us in his stead, the Holy Spirit, who indwells us.

            The Kingdom is a community in which we live as friends of Jesus, as families who come to Him, baptizing each generation into the promises that we have already received.  And it is a feast, a wedding feast.  That is the image in the Book of Revelation.  Notice how the king says the oxen and fat calves have been slaughtered?  Might shake our modern sensibilities, but I am thinking there is some serious barbeque going on.  And there, we whom God has chosen, we who have chosen God, living in a covenant of love through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, will love him and enjoy him forever.

            Welcome to the Kingdom of Heaven.  Amen.