Sermon Tone Analysis
Overall tone of the sermon
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One: In the name of Jesus, author and perfecter of our faith, we gather as a community of faith to worship our God and Creator.
All: We are surrounded by the memories of those who continued the race begun by Christ Jesus.
One: We treasure the memories of what they have left behind, yet to hold on too tightly to the past does not honor the gift of their spirit.
All: The baton is being passed to us here today; men, women, adults, children.
Our hands will carry the torch into the future.
Let the race continue.
Invocation: Creator God, on this Sunday we recognize that you have called each of us into ministry with you.
You call us to use our gifts regardless of our gender.
You urge us into deeper relationships with you regardless of age.
You challenge us to walk beside you regardless of abilities or disabilities.
And God, call us, urge us, and challenge us so that we may see with your eyes and heart, and not our own, that there is a place for each of us to serve in your world.
In Christ’s name we pray.
Amen.
Prayer of Dedication of Gifts and Self
Gracious and Loving God, as we bring you the gifts we have to offer we pray for guidance to use them wisely.
Teach us to use our money to make the world a place where justice is the norm, not merely a hope.
Show us how to use our time and abilities so that our choices will be ones that honor you.
We pray that our spirits will work to bring peace to a struggling and hurting people.
You are a God who breathes hope into each of us.
Give us the courage to breathe hope into others in Jesus’ name.
Amen.
/God of Love and Joy and Laughter, /by Jane Parker Huber
God of love and joy and laughter, calling us to fruitful days,
May we be the echoes after church and people sing your praise.
Your love calls our love to being, grows, surrounds, up builds and holds,
Clears our eyes for keenly seeing all the world your love enfolds.
Tune: /Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee/
/God of the Women/
God of the women who answered your call,
Trusting your promises, giving their all—
Women like Sarah and Hannah and Ruth:
Give us the courage to live in your truth.
God of the women who walked Jesus’ Way,
Giving their resources, learning to pray—
Mary, Joanna, Susanna, and more:
May we give freely as they did before.
God of the women long put to the test,
Left out of stories, forgotten, oppressed,
Quietly asking: “Who smiled at my birth?”
In Jesus’ dying, you show us our worth.
God of the women who ran from the tomb,
Prayed with the others in that upper room,
Then felt your Spirit an Pentecost Day:
May we so gladly proclaim you today.
0 God of Phoebe and ministers all,
May we be joyful in answering your call,.
Give us the strength of your Spirit so near
That we may share in your ministry here.
Sung to the tune of “Be Thou My Vision.”
Carolyn Winfred Gillette
Gifts of Love: New Hymns for Today’s Worship
Geneva Press, 2000.
Martha, Mary and Jesus John 11:1-44
The beginning of this story is fascinating.
It’s like the beginning of many stories we tell where we try to get all the characters straight.
We have Lazarus of Bethany, not some other Lazarus.
We have the Bethany where Mary lives with her sister Martha, not some other village of Bethany.
Then we are told which Mary. Mary the one who anointed the Lord with perfume and wiped his feet with her hair.
This is a story about that Mary.
There doesn’t seem to be anything peculiar about these descriptions, or is there?
For those of us who have a general knowledge of the Bible and have read so many of the stories before, we might not notice much about these few verses.
But there is something interesting.
We are reading in chapter 11 of the Gospel of John.
Mary does not anoint the feet of Jesus until chapter 12.
So Mary is being identified by something that she has not yet done according to the way the author of John is telling the story.
It is another reminder that these stories were part of an oral tradition before they were written down.
By the time the author of the Gospel of John wrote chapter 11, everyone already knew the story in chapter 12.
So the reference makes sense in that context.
People would say, “Oh, that Mary.”
For me, this small detail that seems so insignificant, is very significant for another reason.
It reminds us that when we read the Bible we need to let go of some of our ideas about time.
We need to allow time to be suspended.
We need to read this story not simply as a report of an event that happened 2000 years ago.
We need to remember that this story is a story about what is happening this very day in all of our lives.
Jesus arrives four days late.
When he arrives, Lazarus is dead and buried.
This is an important point.
Lazarus is not simply sleeping.
He is not merely sick.
Lazarus has died and been sealed in the tomb for four days by the time Jesus gets there.
Large crowds of people have gathered in Bethany to mourn and grieve.
Some have come to comfort and console Mary and Martha.
It isn’t unlike what happens today when someone dies.
When Martha hears that Jesus is coming, she goes out to meet him.
She greets him with these words.
“Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”
The same exact words that Mary later speaks to Jesus.
It is as if Mary and Martha had spoken about this before Jesus arrived.
It is common when people die, isn’t it?
We tell the story over and over of what happened and the story telling isn’t just about letting newcomers know what has happened.
There is something sacred and healing in telling the story of what has happened.
“If only Jesus had been here,” I can imagine them saying each time they told the story.
Some have suggested that Martha’s words are not intended as a reproach to Jesus, but simply to express her grief.
Perhaps that is not the case.
Most of us have probably noticed that people are frequently angry when someone dies.
They are angry with the doctors and nurses who couldn’t do anything to prevent it or who didn’t get there in time.
They are angry with the person who died.
They are angry with themselves for something they did or did not do.
They are even angry with God.
It isn’t difficult to imagine that both Mary and Martha might have been angry with Jesus.
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