Angel Fish

Greeting

End of series start of new one: The Road that will take us to Advent!

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ENTRANCE

GATHERING & ANNOUNCEMENTS Rob

OPENING PRAYER Liturgist

Gracious God, when the world's political noise is turned up high, we come not to escape, but to seek wisdom, and to focus on things that are worthy. Dial down the distractions in our minds. Tune our senses to your word and our hearts to your praise. In your holy name we pray.

AMEN

HYMN: Savior Like A Shepherd Lead Us

PROCLAMATION AND PRAISE

PASTORAL PRAYER Liturgist

Today, Lord, we gather (here and) virtually, to receive the blessings of salvation; gifts that are given to transform our lives from quiet isolation to joyful service. We have come here from various struggles and times of confusion. We have come seeking restoration and healing; and you have given both to us. You have reminded us again of the blessings of healing love for all people represented in the bread and the cup in which we partake. We now offer prayers for many people and situations near and dear to us (pause), help us also remember that we are in prayer for ourselves, for strengthening, healing, encouragement, peace. Give us spirits of confidence in your presence that we might be part of the great healing and justice ministries you have set before us. These things we ask in Jesus’ Name. AMEN.

Scripture

Matthew 13:47–53 NRSV

“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was thrown into the sea and caught fish of every kind; when it was full, they drew it ashore, sat down, and put the good into baskets but threw out the bad. So it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous and throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. “Have you understood all this?” They answered, “Yes.” And he said to them, “Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like the master of a household who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.” When Jesus had finished these parables, he left that place.

HYMN: Broken Vessels

PRAYER OF ILLUMINATION

Introduction

What a great day last Sunday was. We have entered our future with a great consecration have we not? All the pundits are predicting when we return to so called normal our in church attendance will be 50 to 75% of what we had before. That was true Sunday we were about at 75% of in-person worship. The prediction is also that the churches that do not continue with steaming worship will fail. For example we had a total worship last week of 925: 125 here and 800 on line! We reached 800 people we would otherwise not reach means we have to continue. I believe the on line attendance was so high because of casting nets. Let me tell you what I mean: invitation.

Exegesis/ Application

it is important that we understand how church is changing and you will see that Jesus address this in these two parables.

If you remember he has left the crowds and back to the house. He tells these two last parables of the Kingdom for the Disciples. First we hear from Jesus about the great dragnet

Once again Jesus is using the common and the ordinary to describe a mystery of the Kingdom. The fisherman in Jesus day primarily used 2 types of nets. One was a casting net. The fisherman would throw this small net out holding on a sting attached to it, then would pul the net back and as they puled it back the string would tighten the net around the fish.

However, the primary net for the commercial fisherman was the dragnet. These nets were quite large and were weighted. They were indiscriminate in what they caught. Suffice it to say they caught everything in their path. The fisherman would drag these onto shore and begin to separate the good fish and put them into buckets from the “trash” fish. The so called trash fish were fish and other aquatic animals that were considered unclean to eat. The good fish, of course, were kosher having scales and fins.

Jesus says this is how the judgment will take place. The church fishes with a dragnet so everything is caught. Nothing is left behind. The net is inclusive all are caught. When Jesus returns the good is separated from the bad by the angels. This is a common theme in Matthew. We have the Wheat and Tares Parable earlier in chapter 13, we did not take a look at that one because it teaches the same thing as this one. We also see in Chapter 25 Jesus separating the sheep from the goats.

Ok so we learn here a mystery of the kingdom: it is a great dragnet and no one is shut out from what?

A great treasure, that’s what! But first Jesus asks the disciples if they are catching on to the mystery of the Kingdom. They tell him yes. The question is for us as well as we leave this series on parables, do we understand this? Have these parables changed our thinking? Have they challenged us? Have they called us? Remember I said in the first sermon Jesus told the parables to convict, teach, and change hearts. But we also know that they hardened some hearts. Where is our heart?

A disciple understands. You have to realize that these parables are like peeling an onion. It is obvious that when the Disciples say the understand that they still went on to do things that showed that they didn’t fully understand. Thats true with us. Understanding these parables takes a lifetime of journeying with Jesus.(This is what our next series is about. The lifetime of journeying wiht Jesus.) The real difference between the disciple and the others is that the Disciples were willing to respond to Jesus Grace offered in these Parables, in other words they had open hearts and minds where those that rejected Jesus had hard hearts and closed minds.

This what Jesus says to them, and in my opinion is the crux of this chapter:

Matthew 13:52 NRSV

And he said to them, “Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like the master of a household who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.”

He tells them that they are the new scribes the new teachers of the law. The new does not replace the old. They are both treasures in the household of our faith and we are trained to teach and apply the old and the new.

We are treasure bearers folks and our treasure, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, The Good News should be a net we spread far and wide, no one is shut out from the life of the church. Grace is free and for everyone. We make no judgments God sorts this out as God sees fit. We are in no position to judge. God sees each individual story in its entirety and with complete understanding. We only see a snapshot with incomplete understanding.

You can look at the dragnet in two different ways. You can come at it from a stance of judgment. That is that God starts with us like we are all dirty sinners and we are going to be thrown into the fire, discarded and forgotten unless we do right, or the dragnet is God’s grace reaching all, no exceptions. As Wesleyans, our dragnet is a dragnet of grace offering to everyone the wonderful treasure of the Gospel. Jesus and we, take people just as they are. It is not our job to determine who the “real Christians” are. It is our job to make sure our nets go deep and wide!

It is a shame that we see churches that want to exclude folks from the grace we are supposed to share so freely. I remember years ago teaching a Senior High Sunday School class on prayer. Life or Look magazine had done a great pictorial on prayer. they went out and took pictures of all kinds of different people and asked them if they prayer. The answer was a resounding yes, even in those that didn’t consider themselves religious. One of those people was a prostitute in a Nevada brothel. She said she prayed every morning for her family, friends, and yes her customers too.

When I read this story to the class one young man became angry and said through clenched teeth. God doesn’t hear her prayers! He started with judgement not grace and when you do that your net gets really small, it becomes the throw net that only catches the “good’ fish.

My first church had a large Latinx ministry. It was financed by the large church in that town because they didn’t want those people in their church. The height of hypocrisy! They would meet with me once a quarter to make sure their money was being used wisely. Really? This reminds me of the false piety that Jesus always spoke against. It was not filled with grace, but with pride, “look at what we have done!” Now, we did do a lot of good with their money which just goes to show we have a redemptive God who can take an insincere show of piety and actually use it to invite everyone into God’s kingdom.

We had so many folks watch us on line last week because we casted our nets deep and wide. We were excited about this new part of our journey and I am overwhelmed by what we did. But, my observation here, is why don’t we do this every Sunday? Every Sunday is a celebration of the new life we receive in jesus Christ. Every Sunday we show our gratitude for all the great work God has done during the week. We moved here because we were follwing what God wanted us to do, to better reach South Hall county and beyond with God’s grace. Don’t stop now. We can accomplish great things for God as long as we stay the scribes that are trained for the kingdom of heaven And share the treasure both old and new. Do we understand? Yes we do. The church should always be a work in progress. Yes things are changing and Jesus tells us we have treasure both new and old.It’s not new or old, its new and old.

We are on a great adventure folks. One that is grace filled and awe inspired. I am reminded of a song Christian Artist Steven Curtis Chapman The Great Adventure hear are the lyrics

Started out this morning in the usual way

Chasing thoughts inside my head

I thought I had to do today

Another time around the circle

Try to make it better than the last

I opened up the Bible

And I read about me

Said I'd been a prisoner

And God's Grace had set me free

And somewhere between the pages

It hit me like a lightning bolt

I saw a big frontier in front of me

And I heard somebody say let's go

Saddle up your horses

We've got a trail to blaze

Through the wild blue yonder of God's Amazing grace

Let's follow our leader into the Glorious unknown

This is the life like no other whoa whoa

This is the great adventure

So come on, get ready for the ride of your life

Gonna leave long faced religion

In a cloud of dust behind

And discover all the new horizons

Just waiting to be explored

This is what we were created for, yeah

Saddle up your horses

We've got a trail to blaze

This is the life like no other

This is the great adventure

We'll travel on, over mountains so high

We'll go through valleys below

Still through it all we'll find that

This is the greatest journey

That the human heart will ever see

The love of God will take us far

Beyond our wildest dreams

Saddle up your horses

We've got a trail to blaze

Saddle up your horses

We've got a trail to blaze (we've got a trail we've got a trail to blaze) 

Through the wild blue yonder of God's Amazing grace

Let's follow our leader into the Glorious unknown

This is the life like no other

This is the great adventure

Let’s saddle up folks, we are blazing a new trail sharing God’s amazing grace with every one.

HYMN: Blessed Assurance

SENDING FORTH

BENEDICTION Liturgist

You have received blessing upon blessing from the Lord. Now go into the world offering hope and peace to all people you meet. Be involved in justice and healing ministries in the name of the Lord.

Go in peace, to: Love Christ Love People and Help People Love Christ AMEN.