Close
Notes
Transcript
Overview
Overview
“Close” is not a word we have been familiar with over the past year, in fact, this last year we were really familiar with the opposite word “distance.” There were valuable reasons why we have needed to be distant from each other, but perhaps this year more than any reminds us just how much we need closeness; with God and with others. From the creation of humanity, God has desired to be close with humanity, dwell with humanity, and to be our God and we God’s people. The God of the universe is ever present with us. There is something particularly beautiful in the ways that God models closeness for us and for our community. We learn from God what it means to be close to others, and what it means to be in relationship with others.
Week 1 - God Dwells With Us
Week 1 - God Dwells With Us
7 Now Moses used to take the tent and pitch it outside the camp, far off from the camp; he called it the tent of meeting. And everyone who sought the Lord would go out to the tent of meeting, which was outside the camp.
8 Whenever Moses went out to the tent, all the people would rise and stand, each of them, at the entrance of their tents and watch Moses until he had gone into the tent.
9 When Moses entered the tent, the pillar of cloud would descend and stand at the entrance of the tent, and the Lord would speak with Moses.
10 When all the people saw the pillar of cloud standing at the entrance of the tent, all the people would rise and bow down, all of them, at the entrance of their tent.
11 Thus the Lord used to speak to Moses face to face, as one speaks to a friend. Then he would return to the camp; but his young assistant, Joshua son of Nun, would not leave the tent.
12 Moses said to the Lord, “See, you have said to me, ‘Bring up this people’; but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. Yet you have said, ‘I know you by name, and you have also found favor in my sight.’
13 Now if I have found favor in your sight, show me your ways, so that I may know you and find favor in your sight. Consider too that this nation is your people.”
14 He said, “My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.”
15 And he said to him, “If your presence will not go, do not carry us up from here.
16 For how shall it be known that I have found favor in your sight, I and your people, unless you go with us? In this way, we shall be distinct, I and your people, from every people on the face of the earth.”
Description
God tabernacled with Moses, meaning God set up camp with Moses. God desires to be with us. Even from this story of the Israelites we see clear indication that God desires to dwell with us. The line that seem particularly interesting this passage (in the NRSV) are “The lord used to speak to Moses face to face, as one speaks to a friend.” (Ex. 33:11) God is close to Moses in a tangible almost visceral way and Moses’ response to that is that he doesn’t want to go any where that God will not go with him. Moses is reassured of God’s continued pressence with him, it reads a lille bit like; wherever you go I will be there. Not only is God close with us now, but God will continue to be close with us wherever we go, the thing that perhaps matters the most is what our response to that is. This is an opportunity to re-visit the ways that God’s grace always goes before us.
Members of our church may hold a wide diversity of beliefs about the supremacy of God. Do I interact with God in the same way that I would interact with a friend? Do I approach God with fear and trembling out of the fear of God? This week is an opportunity not just to launch the series, but also to explore what God’s pursuit of us. This is an opportunity to start the series with a primary reminder that God seeks to dwell with God’s people, and everything else is just a response to God’s pursuit of us.
Great place to start - concept of intimacy with God starts with Moses
This is God’s approach to us
People were afraid to go to God’s pressence
might require a little extra context
Here’s what’s happening in Exodus....
A different expectation about how God might communicate
It doesn’t say that many places that God stopped communicating in this way
Connection to the way we
Week 2 - We Yearn for Closeness
Week 2 - We Yearn for Closeness
1 O God, you are my God, I seek you, my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.
2 So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary, beholding your power and glory.
3 Because your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise you.
4 So I will bless you as long as I live; I will lift up my hands and call on your name.
5 My soul is satisfied as with a rich feast, and my mouth praises you with joyful lips
6 when I think of you on my bed, and meditate on you in the watches of the night;
7 for you have been my help, and in the shadow of your wings I sing for joy.
8 My soul clings to you; your right hand upholds me.
Description
In this Psalm David is desperate for closeness with God. How often do we want to be close with God as much as we want to breath? How often do we want to be close with God as much as we want to eat? How much do we want to be close to God more than we want (insert whatever is a temptation for you here)? So often worshiping God can feel like something that we do to check that box, but that doesn’t seem at all be the attitude that David holds in this psalm. For some there may have been a moment early moment in their faith or perhaps a “mountain top” experience at a camp or conference, but that doesn’t quite seem exactly what David is talking about in this passage. David is talking about the God shaped hole in his heart a deep and impassioned cry that things are not well, until he knows that he is close to God.
When we worship God in both the corporate setting and in the personal setting we participate in naming a very similar yearning. We might not be able to articulate it in quite the same way that David can, but we thirst for God. So often that presents itself in us confusing that thirst for something else. We confuse our thirst for God with our thirst for closeness with others, or belonging, or being loved fully by another person. The fact of the matter is that we yearn for closeness. First and foremost we yearn for closeness with God, and as we will discover in the following weeks we yearn to be close with others as well. When we praise God through our worship we also declare much like David our dependence on God.
This is the longing for God that get’s fulfilled in the last two week
“As the deer” song
Academy for Spiritual formation uses some traditional songs
Week 3 - God Communes with Us
Week 3 - God Communes with Us
14 When the hour came, he took his place at the table, and the apostles with him.
15 He said to them, “I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer;
16 for I tell you, I will not eat it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.”
17 Then he took a cup, and after giving thanks he said, “Take this and divide it among yourselves;
18 for I tell you that from now on I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.”
19 Then he took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”
20 And he did the same with the cup after supper, saying, “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.
21 But see, the one who betrays me is with me, and his hand is on the table.
22 For the Son of Man is going as it has been determined, but woe to that one by whom he is betrayed!”
23 Then they began to ask one another which one of them it could be who would do this.
Description
This passage mentions how physically close Jesus is to his friends. He “eagerly desired to eat this passover” (v 15 nrsv) with them. It was amongst friends that were sharing in food that the miracle of communion happened first. Jesus walks and dwells among the people in physical tangible form presenting another layer of the length with which God will go to be close to God’s people. There is a collegiality, and a sense fellowship that seems to be evident in each of the gospel accounts of this story. Jesus connected with the disciples in a way that felt authentic, and visceral. They heard the instructions surrounding the elements from the voice of a friend. The celebration of communion brings the reality of God’s grace so close to us that it becomes a part of us. God can not get much closer to us, than through being one with us through the elements. There is a sense of urgency in which God is searching actively for a body to live in. And you are who God has found. Communion is an opportunity to accept God’s desire to be close with us.
Do communion
Opportunity to explore how we dwell with God
Week 4 - God’s Closeness shapes our Closeness
Week 4 - God’s Closeness shapes our Closeness
17 Now in the following instructions I do not commend you, because when you come together it is not for the better but for the worse.
18 For, to begin with, when you come together as a church, I hear that there are divisions among you; and to some extent I believe it.
19 Indeed, there have to be factions among you, for only so will it become clear who among you are genuine.
20 When you come together, it is not really to eat the Lord’s supper.
21 For when the time comes to eat, each of you goes ahead with your own supper, and one goes hungry and another becomes drunk.
22 What! Do you not have homes to eat and drink in? Or do you show contempt for the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing? What should I say to you? Should I commend you? In this matter I do not commend you!
27 Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be answerable for the body and blood of the Lord.
28 Examine yourselves, and only then eat of the bread and drink of the cup.
29 For all who eat and drink without discerning the body, eat and drink judgment against themselves.
30 For this reason many of you are weak and ill, and some have died.
31 But if we judged ourselves, we would not be judged.
32 But when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with the world.
33 So then, my brothers and sisters, when you come together to eat, wait for one another.
34 If you are hungry, eat at home, so that when you come together, it will not be for your condemnation. About the other things I will give instructions when I come.
Description
There is a component of this passage that discusses the people that go hungry at the communion table because of the divisions within the church. If we are divided (ie not close) with each other there is a cost to that. If we fight and bicker as the church and are not on the same page, someone in our world suffers because they don’t see the good news of Jesus Christ. The world communion has the same root at the word community. Meaning that we are only able to be close with God if we are truly willing to be close with each other as an expression of the ways that we are close to God. We often understand communion as an expression of closeness or community with God. An aspect of communion that this particular passage brings out is that communion (both the sacrament and the idea of communion with God) are not possible unless we are close also with God’s body....the church. Everything to do with the sacrament of communion is in one part sacred and in another part profane. Paul is giving instructions about the physical components of communion, but this week is an opportunity to talk about the spiritual significance of these words. It is also a more broad opportunity to revisit what we believe about communion as a church/denomination.
Do communion
If you ever feel like we have partaken in this.....
Invite a new friend
Do a communion in a communal way
Communicate, communion, and community all the same root