Zion 11 Oct

Norman Unsworth

After Pentecost • Sermon • Submitted a year ago • Presented a year ago

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CALL TO WORSHIP

StF 429 Lord, we turn to you for mercy.

A GATHERING PRAYER

Lord, your goodness and love have surrounded us all the days of our lives. We gather at your invitation, to rejoice in you, to bring our concerns to you, and to know your peace. Amen.

A PRAYER OF ADORATION

Generous God, we kneel in awe at your willingness to draw us into your fellowship; in wonder at your gracious invitation to join the feast of life; in gratitude at your care for each one of us; in humility for your faithfulness towards each one of us. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we kneel and worship and adore you. Amen.

A PRAYER OF CONFESSION

Gracious God, you invite us to join you in caring for the vulnerable, and we hurt you when we do not accept your invitation. We are sorry and ask your forgiveness. You invite us to share the good news of your love, and we hurt you when we do not accept your invitation. We are sorry and ask your forgiveness. You invite us to clothe ourselves with compassion and humility, and we hurt you when we do not accept your invitation. We are sorry and ask your forgiveness. You invite us to take our place at your table, and we hurt you when we do not accept your invitation. We are sorry and ask your forgiveness, in Jesus’ name. Amen.

ASSURANCE OF FORGIVENESS

Eternal God, you clothe us with forgiveness, you cover us with your grace, you feed us with your word, you robe us with your generosity, you root us in your faithfulness, you gather us in your love, you invite us to be your disciples, and you go all out to draw us all in and call us each by name. Amen.

StF 83 Praise, my Soul, the King of Heaven.

READING

Exodus 32: 1-14

The Golden Calf

32 When the people saw that Moses was so long in coming down from the mountain, they gathered around Aaron and said, “Come, make us gods[a] who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who brought us up out of Egypt, we don’t know what has happened to him.”

2 Aaron answered them, “Take off the gold earrings that your wives, your sons and your daughters are wearing, and bring them to me.” 3 So all the people took off their earrings and brought them to Aaron. 4 He took what they handed him and made it into an idol cast in the shape of a calf, fashioning it with a tool. Then they said, “These are your gods,[b] Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.”

5 When Aaron saw this, he built an altar in front of the calf and announced, “Tomorrow there will be a festival to the Lord.” 6 So the next day the people rose early and sacrificed burnt offerings and presented fellowship offerings. Afterward they sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in revelry.

7 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go down, because your people, whom you brought up out of Egypt, have become corrupt. 8 They have been quick to turn away from what I commanded them and have made themselves an idol cast in the shape of a calf. They have bowed down to it and sacrificed to it and have said, ‘These are your gods, Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.’

9 “I have seen these people,” the Lord said to Moses, “and they are a stiff-necked people. 10 Now leave me alone so that my anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them. Then I will make you into a great nation.”

11 But Moses sought the favour of the Lord his God. “Lord,” he said, “why should your anger burn against your people, whom you brought out of Egypt with great power and a mighty hand? 12 Why should the Egyptians say, ‘It was with evil intent that he brought them out, to kill them in the mountains and to wipe them off the face of the earth’? Turn from your fierce anger; relent and do not bring disaster on your people. 13 Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, to whom you swore by your own self: ‘I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and I will give your descendants all this land I promised them, and it will be their inheritance forever.’” 14 Then the Lord relented and did not bring on his people the disaster he had threatened.

Matthew 22: 1-14

The Parable of the Wedding Banquet

22 Jesus spoke to them again in parables, saying: 2 “The kingdom of heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son. 3 He sent his servants to those who had been invited to the banquet to tell them to come, but they refused to come.

4 “Then he sent some more servants and said, ‘Tell those who have been invited that I have prepared my dinner: My oxen and fattened cattle have been butchered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding banquet.’

5 “But they paid no attention and went off—one to his field, another to his business. 6 The rest seized his servants, mistreated them, and killed them. 7 The king was enraged. He sent his army and destroyed those murderers and burned their city.

8 “Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding banquet is ready, but those I invited did not deserve to come. 9 So go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find.’ 10 So the servants went out into the streets and gathered all the people they could find, the bad as well as the good, and the wedding hall was filled with guests.

11 “But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing wedding clothes. 12 He asked, ‘How did you get in here without wedding clothes, friend?’ The man was speechless.

13 “Then the king told the attendants, ‘Tie him hand and foot, and throw him outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’

14 “For many are invited, but few are chosen.”

StF 66 The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases.

SERMON

I recently saw a film called “Mr. Rogers”. It was a biographical film, even though he was well loved across America in the 1960’s the program was never shown in the UK. he showed children how to handle relational problems, but in fact a lot of what he taught was helpful for himself as his own childhood was filled with times when he felt unsure about himself or when he didn’t know how to handle a situation, times he felt alone, and at times he felt inferior.

Ultimately our hidden issues tend to be problems with relationships. Our insecurities arise from the inability to trust that we are not alone, that we are loved, that we are okay just as we are.

Maybe it is inherently human to doubt ourselves and others. Maybe one of our deepest fears is that someone we trusted, and thought was there for us was in fact where not there at all!

These are the greatest challenge in our lives and our relationships. It’s also our greatest challenge in discipleship, because it gets to the very crux of what it means to have “faith.”

Faith is trust in something we can’t see and ultimately can’t be sure of. If we were sure, it would mean we have no faith.

So, really our greatest issue we have as Christians is not whether we know Jesus is there, but whether we can risk believing He is.

Doubt is an integral part of faith. The challenge is can we live with not knowing, but just trusting that God is there?

In our scripture story for today, the Israelite's are in that wilderness, on that journey from Egypt to an unknown place of promise. They are facing a lot of unknowns.

They don’t know where they are going. They don’t really know Moses that well. And now, he’s gone up a mountain to talk to God, a God, he’s told them about. And before they knew it, he’s been gone three months! Let’s face it.

They don’t think he’s coming back.

Think about it. If your partner leaves and goes on a trip for three months. And for the entire time, you have no contact. You don’t hear any “I love you’s.” No “I miss you’s.” No “I’ll be home next week.” How would you feel.

We are extremely uncomfortable with silence, the unknown, and what we don’t have in front of us. We crave to see and touch something we see as “real”.

The problem with that is that God resides in the realms of the invisible. And in the case of the Israelite’s, their “shepherd” had gone missing!

So, in their insecurity, they called on their priest, Aaron, to make them a security blanket, what we call a “golden calf.”

Maybe the golden calf is a reminder of the “gods” they worshipped back in Egypt. But the scripture doesn’t say that. It says, they wanted something to replace the God and the shepherd that went missing.

They wanted something they could see and touch to calm their fears and ease their anxiety and help them trust that they were out there in the wilderness for a purpose.

The golden calf is what they got.

Here was something real and tangible. Here was something they could give to people who needed somehow to get in touch with something, feel they had a relationship with something.

They couldn’t face thinking all was lost. They needed to believe in something. And they needed to see it in front of them.

Each one of us can identify. We all know that “need-it-now” feeling. Gotta have it, I’ve got to see it, got to feel it! Then I can believe. Then I can trust it.

The Hebrews needed a sign. So, they created one themselves.

That’s the real sin, what the Jewish rabbis call the “sin of the calf!” It’s not pure idolatry. They weren’t trying to disrespect God or deliberately go another way.

When Moses brought those tablets down the mountain, he was essentially offering up God’s “marriage contract” –it was a relational agreement between God and God’s people.

When Moses smashes those tablets, he’s not just doing it in anger. He’s acting out a breach of relationship that has already occurred.

God says in Exodus 32:8, in sadness, “they turned aside from the ‘way’ that I enjoined upon them.” God feels they have deserted the covenant. God feels alienated from them.

They have given up trust and have created instead a “substitute” for God, because they couldn’t trust in God’s love.

Do we also create substitutes for God? Is it our home our bank balance is that we put our trust in?

The “way” of God is trust. The kind of trust that means to commit in the dark, to keep trusting even when you can’t feel God is there.

God is not a “feel good fix.” Being in a relationship with God may leave us sometimes longing for a security blanket. But growing into discipleship means, growing into trust.

We as followers of Jesus and children of God bear the holy “image” of God upon us. All of us wear God’s engraving of love and commitment upon our hearts and our minds.

If you've received an invitation to a party or wedding reception will see at the bottom of their invitation the initials: RSVP. We all know what to do when we see this. It’s a kind of “code” that tells us that our response is requested. Do you know what exactly those initials mean?

The letters come from the early French phrase, “Répondez s’il vous plaît”: “Respond, if you please.” Or “Please respond!” It was a polite way of requesting a guest to confirm his or her attendance. This shows honour and consideration for the host, who is planning food and drink for the guests during the reception celebration.

“Please respond.”

Sometimes I think this phrase should be a Christian’s key phrase –the message we bear on our hearts.

Think about the messages of the prophets. The warnings throughout scripture to those who do not honour God.

God offers. We have the option to decline or confirm. God invites all to his kingdom “feast.” Our response is requested. S’ilvous plait.

Jesus has just been teaching everyone who will listen what it means to be part of God’s “kingdom of heaven.” Each of his parables illustrate some quality or feature of what it means to enter, into that “kingdom”. For Jesus, this is not a “place” but a condition; not a destination but the nature of a covenant relationship that exists not only in the future but in the here and now.

What does it mean to enter, into the “kingdom of heaven?”

Instead of handing out a list of qualities, Jesus offers something much more powerful: a story filled with deep, rich scriptural metaphors: the parable of a wedding feast.

In the story we see a King who is throwing a massive wedding and reception for his Son. He has issued formal invitations to all those originally invited.

When it comes time for the wedding and banquet, the King sends his servants to bring the guests. Shockingly, they do not come.

They are nowhere in sight. They refused to attend. They are not interested, or they are deliberately snubbing the King’s son.

The King says he has prepared the best of the best for the wedding banquet.

Those who were invited made light of it. Some instead went back to their businesses. Still others attacked the King’s messengers, beating and even killing them. The King realised that none of those on his original invitation list were respectful, or appreciative of him, or his son.

The King then sent servants instead to invite every person throughout the city that they could find –no matter whether they were “good” or “bad” people, no matter if they were Jewish or otherwise. They filled the wedding banquet full of anyone who wanted to come. The new guests swarmed into the banquet hall, honoured, and delighted to be asked, to be considered part of such a special occasion.

More importantly, they responded with new understanding of who the King was and entered a relationship with the King and his Son with joy, gratitude, and humility.

The King was delighted that so many had responded.

Except for one man. The King noticed someone who entered the feast without wearing a wedding robe he had provided. At that, he was promptly removed.

Why?

We need to understand something about the decorum of a 1st century Jewish wedding.

In early Judaism (and in some cases still today), the bride is not the only one to wear a “special garment.” The groom donned a Kittel, a white linen robe. This robe would be worn first at his wedding, then throughout his life at all high holy days.

He would be buried in that same garment at the time of his death.

This garment had deep, spiritual meaning.

It represented not only his “covenant” commitment to the marriage, but it symbolised the couple’s rebirth –from two individuals to life together.

As they begin this new life together, they do so with a clean slate. The wedding robe symbolised repentance, humility, forgiveness, and purification. On the groom’s wedding day, all sins would be forgiven as he enters the sacred covenant of marriage.

In Jesus’ day, every guest at the wedding the men would also be given a Kittel to wear.

To refuse to don the wedding robe would be like refusing your wedding ring. It was a sign of disrespect for the sacred moment, for the King, and for the son.

Not only did this man in the parable refuse to attend, but he came to mock the sacredness of the King’s wedding and the authority of his son, the gift of feast, and most of all, the gift of covenant.

To be worthy of God’s covenant gift, Jesus is clear in his story that you don’t need to be a “good” or “bad” person. That doesn’t matter in the least. You do need to respond with honour, and commitment.

Your affirmative RSVP, your confirmation and commitment is your only requirement.

The metaphors associated in Jesus’ story with the wedding feast echo not only the kind of relationship God expects to have with each follower of Jesus.

Those accepting God’s invitation are called to repent. In doing so, each is granted forgiveness of sins and a fresh start, a new life: “Our sins shall be made as white as snow” (Is. 1:18).

Like the Kittel worn by every guest is not just the clothing of respect but the clothing of repentance that defines the heart of the wearer.

Jesus’ message?

Something big is going down. The Messiah has come, and those who come into relationship with him, and repent and follow him, will receive forgiveness of sins and a brand-new life.

God’s invitation is open to every person: good or bad.

No detached observers allowed. Only serious investors need to respond.

Messiah has come! The Feast is ready.

Jesus is calling to each of us today. Will you join him in “holy covenant?” Will you enter a committed relationship with him and with God when he calls you from your busyness, your life?

Will you RSVP?

OFFERING DURING HYMN

StF 479 The King of Love my shepherd is.

PRAYERS OF THANKSGIVING AND INTERCESSION

We give you thanks, wonderful God, for the gift of life, for the opportunities of life, for the invitations to flourish in life. May we be as whole-hearted as you in all we do, as generous as you in all we give, as daring as you in all we dream, and as faithful as you in all our relationships. Thank you for everything. Amen.

O God, we come to pray not for ourselves, but for each other – for those we know and those we don’t, for situations we understand and for those that confound us.

The news tells us of trauma and heartache across the world and we try to grasp the intensity of it all. Bless, O Lord, all involved with those who are hurting. We hear of death and dying, of grieving and weeping those who work in hospices to support those at the end of life, with care and concern, support them as they draw close to those who need them.

We pray for those who feel unready to leave this world and those who’s suffering calls for this life to be over…

We hear of pain, scarring and disfigurement…

The results of war or violent crime that changes a life in an instant, help salve the wounds and give them peace. We hear of anguish and confusion…

For those who find they cannot find a place they are comfortable in, put someone in their path to help. We hear of those in need of help, and those who struggle to find it…

Help us to be aware of the situation and be there with open hands to give aid without prejudice. We hear of the grieving and the sorrowful…

Help us to be alongside offering what we can. We hear of the lost and the alone…

There are so many people who are lost and alone whilst being in a crowd, give us the ability to be sensitive to those he needs unconditional friendship. And we know, Lord, there are myriad others known only to you. Bless them all in their hurting and their healing. Amen.

THE 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 trespasses,

As we forgive those who trespass against us,

And lead us not into temptation,

But deliver us from evil.

For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory,

For ever and ever Amen.

StF 409 Let us build a house where love can dwell.

BLESSING

Go into the week ahead, and wherever you find yourself, celebrating or sharing a sadness, or anything in between, may you rejoice in God’s grace. See each moment as an invitation to meet with God, each meeting as an opportunity to invite others. Until we meet again. Amen. The Grace…..

I recently saw a film called “Mr. Rogers”. It was a biographical film, he was well loved across America but never shown in the UK he showed how to handle relational problems, to children, but in fact a lot of what he taught was helpful for himself his own childhood was filled with times when he felt unsure of himself or when he didn’t know how to handle a situation, times he felt alone, and at times he felt inferior.

Ultimately our hidden issues tend to be problems with relationships. Our insecurities arise from the inability to trust that we are not alone, that we are loved, that we are okay just as we are.

Maybe it is inherently human to doubt ourselves and others. Maybe one of our deepest fears is that someone we trusted, and thought was there for us was in fact where not there at all!

The greatest challenge in our lives and our relationships. It’s our greatest challenge in discipleship, because it gets to the very crux of what it means to have “faith.”

Faith is trust in something we can’t see and ultimately can’t be sure of. If we were sure, it would mean we have no faith.

So, really our greatest challenge as Christians is not whether we know Jesus is there, but whether we can risk believing He is. Doubt is an integral part of faith. The challenge is can we live with not knowing, but just trusting that God is there?

In our scripture story for today, the Israelites are in that wilderness, on that journey from Egypt to an unknown place of promise. They are facing a lot of unknowns.

There also a bit unsure they want to get there. Let’s face it, they take a two-week journey that lasts for it 40 years!

They don’t know where they are going. They don’t really know Moses that well. And now, he’s gone up a mountain to talk to God, a God, he’s told them about but one they have not physically seen themselves. And before they knew it, he’s been gone three months! Let’s face it.

They don’t think he’s coming back.

Think about it. If your husband or wife leaves and goes on a trip for three months. And for the entire time, you have no contact. You don’t hear from him or her. No “I love you’s.” No “I miss you’s.” No “I’ll be home next week.” How would you feel.

We are extremely uncomfortable with silence, the unknown, and what we don’t have in front of us. We crave to see and touch something we see as “real”.

The problem with that is that God resides in the realms of the invisible. And in the case of the Israelites, their “shepherd” had gone missing!

So, in their insecurity, they called on their priest, Aaron, to make them a security blanket, what we call a “golden calf.”

Maybe the golden calf is a reminder of the “gods” they worshiped back in Egypt. But the scripture doesn’t say that. It says, they wanted something to replace the God and the shepherd that went missing.

They wanted something they could see and touch to calm their fears and ease their anxiety and help them trust that they were out there in the wilderness for a purpose.

The golden calf is what they got.

Here was something real and tangible. Here was something they could give to people who needed somehow to get in touch with something, feel they had a relationship with something.

They needed to touch their God who led them out of Egypt and into this desolate place, who would indeed continue to lead them out of it and into a place they had been promised.

They couldn’t face thinking all was lost. They needed to believe in something. And they needed to see it in front of them.

Each one of us can identify. We all know that “need-it-now” feeling. Gotta have it, I’ve got to see it, got to feel it! Then I can believe. Then I can trust it.

The Hebrews needed a sign. So, they created one themselves.

That’s the real sin, what the Jewish rabbis call the “sin of the calf!” It’s not pure idolatry. They weren’t trying to disrespect God or deliberately go another way.

They just wanted a “sign” to remind them of what they could believe in any longer. They needed something to get them through the “dark.”

We call that the “dark night of the soul,” don’t we?

When Moses brought those tablets down the mountain, he was essentially offering up God’s “marriage contract” –it was a relational agreement between God and God’s people.

When Moses smashes those tablets, he’s not just doing it in anger. He’s acting out a breach of relationship that has already occurred.

God’s people didn’t wait for him to return. They didn’t trust in Him to love them even though they couldn’t see Him. They didn’t trust that Moses would come back. They refused to take the “risk” to be in a space of discomfort that all of us need to dwell in when we enter a relationship with God.

God says in Exodus 32:8, in sadness, “they turned aside from the ‘way’ that I enjoined upon them.” God feels they have deserted the covenant. God feels alienated from them.

They have given up trust and have created instead a “substitute” for God, because they couldn’t trust in God’s love.

Do we also create substitutes for God? Is it our home our bank balance that we put our trust in?

The “way” of God is trust. The kind of trust that means to commit in the dark, to keep trusting even when you can’t feel God is there.

God is not a “feel good fix.” Being in a relationship with God may leave us sometimes longing for a security blanket. But growing into discipleship means, growing into trust.

During the second world war, soldiers who had to leave their sweethearts were comforted often by carrying a picture of their “beloved at home” with them into battle.

Perhaps for us, that is the best example of the link between faith and love. Those soldiers couldn’t know for sure that their girl or wife would be there when they eventually got back.

But if they could see that picture, they knew, they had something and someone to live for.

We as followers of Jesus and children of God bear the holy “image” of God upon us. All of us wear God’s engraving of love and commitment upon our hearts and our minds.

Everyone invited to a party or wedding reception will see at the bottom of their invitation the initials: RSVP. We all know what to do when we see this. It’s a kind of “code” that tells us that our response is requested. Do you know did what exactly those initials mean?

The letters come from the early French phrase, “Répondez s’il vous plaît”: “Respond, if you please.” Or more colloquially, “Please respond!” It was a polite way of requesting a guest to confirm his or her attendance. This shows honour and consideration for the host, who is planning ample food and drink for the guests during the reception celebration.

“Please respond.”

Sometimes I think this phrase should be a Christian’s key phrase –the message we bear on our hearts. As followers of Jesus, defines our willingness to invest––in relationship, in interest, in repentance and in faith.

Think about the messages of the prophets. The warnings throughout scripture to those who do not honour God.

God offers. We have the option to decline or confirm. God invites all to his kingdom “feast.” Our response is requested. S’ilvous plait.

What does it mean to enter, into the “kingdom of heaven?”

Instead of handing out a list of qualities, Jesus offers something much more powerful: a story filled with deep, rich scriptural metaphors: the parable of a wedding feast.

In the story we see a King who is throwing a massive wedding and reception for his Son. He has issued formal invitations to all originally invited.

When it comes time for the wedding and banquet, the King sends his servants to bring the guests. Shockingly, they do not come.

He sent servants again hoping he has been mistaken and that the guests have merely been delayed.

They are nowhere in sight. They refused to attend. They are not interested, or they are deliberately snubbing the King’s son.

The King says he has prepared the best of the best for the wedding banquet.

More importantly, they responded with new understanding of who the King was and entered a relationship with the King and his Son with joy, gratitude, and humility.

The King was delighted that so many had responded.

Except for one man. The King noticed someone who entered the feast without wearing a wedding robe he had provided. At that, he was promptly removed.

Why?

We need to understand something about the decorum of a 1st century Jewish wedding.

He would be buried in that same garment so hopefully it’s loose fitting at the time of his death.

This garment had deep, spiritual meaning. It represented not only his “covenant” commitment to the marriage, but it symbolized the couple’s rebirth –from two individuals to life together. As they begin a new life together, they do so with a clean slate. The wedding robe symbolized repentance, humility, forgiveness, and purification. On the groom’s wedding day, all sins would be forgiven as he enters the sacred covenant of marriage.

In Jesus’ day, every guest at the wedding the men would also be given a Kittel to wear.

To refuse to don the wedding robe would be like refusing your wedding ring. It was a sign of blatant disrespect for the sacred moment, for the King, and for the son.

Your affirmative RSVP, your confirmation and commitment is your only requirement.

The metaphors associated in Jesus’ story with the wedding feast echo not only the kind of relationship God expects to have with each follower of Jesus –those committed to an intimate, loyal, covenant relationship in humility and joy.

Those accepting God’s invitation are called to repent. In doing so, each is granted forgiveness of sins and a fresh start, a new life: “Our sins shall be made as white as snow” (Is. 1:18).

Like the Kittel worn by every guest is not just the clothing of respect but the clothing of righteousness –and repentance that defines the heart of the wearer.

Jesus’ message?

Something big is going down. The Messiah has come, and all who come into relationship with him, repent and follow him, will receive forgiveness of sins and a brand-new life.

God’s invitation is open to every person: good or bad, Jew or Greek,

No detached observers allowed. Only serious investors need to respond.

Messiah has come! The Feast is ready.

Jesus is calling to each of us today. Will you join him in “holy covenant?” Will you enter a committed relationship with him and with God when he calls you from your busyness, your life?