Week 3 The Same God

Sermon

My last sermon

This is a bittersweet moment for me

I am hopeful about my own future, I am hopeful about the future of the Church, and I am looking back in gratitude over what the last three years in professoinal ministry have meant to me here at this church.

looking back on several joys in ministry here

celebrating several moments of joy

Thinking about my first sermon

We were in the transitions series

I was reminded recently that I gave a full history of Faith Chapel

Before my first Sunday I met with the Archive ministry and asked a lot of questions

You were the church before I came

you will continue to be the church after my time here

And yet we are going through a very real change as the church

Into a new season

Our church is reimagining what it looks like to live out the mission of God through our method of the church with the resources that we have

Which in some ways is all we have ever done

In it’s 2000 year history Christians have gathered and participate in the kingdom of God in a whole host of different ways, and under a whole host of different structures

As our worshiping site this body thinks about what the future looks like without a pastor, no that this is not a first

This is not a first for the church to exist without clergy

And in fact most of the disclipling that happens in churches comes more from the people than it does from the pastor

There are a lot more laity than clergy

We

The difference is that you are entering really a new time and a new era of what the church looks like

Throughout the church’s history the thing that has remained the same is not the people every 100 years or so the people change.

It’s not the programing that actually changes a lot quicker

It is the same God that has been there through it all

We serve the same God that our ancestors did, and their ancestors did and our decendents will

When we think about our past as a church it can be easy to dismiss it.

It can be easy to pretend that it was different people and a different time, but our ancestors aren’t that much different than we are

Transition to the Text

We’ve been in the Hebrew Bible the Old Testament

Started in the begining

Jumped to Jacob renamed Israel

Moses and the burning bush

Moses came back and released the slaves from slavery in Egypt

God used Plagues to do it

Particuarly it was to break down the Powers that were present, and to bring them back once again to right relationship with god and with each other.

There are all of these nasty plagues

Yaheweh is clearing out not just the leaders of the empire, but the Gods and idols of empire.

Well Pharoah still doesn’t budge and so the very last of the plagues is the Passover ritural being instituted

Exodus 12:1–13 NRSV

1 The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt: 2 This month shall mark for you the beginning of months; it shall be the first month of the year for you. 3 Tell the whole congregation of Israel that on the tenth of this month they are to take a lamb for each family, a lamb for each household. 4 If a household is too small for a whole lamb, it shall join its closest neighbor in obtaining one; the lamb shall be divided in proportion to the number of people who eat of it. 5 Your lamb shall be without blemish, a year-old male; you may take it from the sheep or from the goats. 6 You shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month; then the whole assembled congregation of Israel shall slaughter it at twilight. 7 They shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat it. 8 They shall eat the lamb that same night; they shall eat it roasted over the fire with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. 9 Do not eat any of it raw or boiled in water, but roasted over the fire, with its head, legs, and inner organs. 10 You shall let none of it remain until the morning; anything that remains until the morning you shall burn. 11 This is how you shall eat it: your loins girded, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and you shall eat it hurriedly. It is the passover of the Lord. 12 For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike down every firstborn in the land of Egypt, both human beings and animals; on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the Lord. 13 The blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you live: when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague shall destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt.

We remember a specific historical event that was transformed to a liturgical practice

What is really happening here is a pattern or a ritual that helps people connect to Yeweh

Will help us to get to the event of the last supper

It was the promise associated with the blood that protected the people

It was specifically that the blood contains the vitality of the living

blood symbolizes the creation – the blood of creation is shed

God uses creation to achieve redemption

The last sentence says – and then they did it

Without reading into that in the liturgy itself, in living into the specific instructions that God gave them they participated in the redemption of all of creation

It is through worship and liturgy that we too participate in the redemption of Creation, we get to stand before our God together in awe and wonder.

Worship requires an imagination

That is especially true for this ritual

When people were first told of it it made no sense

Why would we have to do any of this?

Worship involves suspending disbelief

it involves a certain level of imagination

Through worship something is communicated to us by God

Something sacred happens when we are wililing to accept it

But the question really is are we willing to accept it, or are we even expecting for God to move

The instructions here are on the what...we assume that God will fill in the why

It requires an imagination to ask why it is that we do each of the piece of worship that we do

The Church’s Identity is in what it does habitually

You do the ritual and the liturgy because it shapes you in ways that you can’t explain.

It helps to bring children into a world of wonder and to pass on our heritage to the next generation

We just have to focus on what we are doing, the day to day of our Christian walk and life

Draw a line to communion

It was that Passover was instituted, or normalized

Through God’s redemption – God brought us out of Egypt

We are freed from slavery by the blood of a different lamb

We don’t understand it, but we do feel it (God’s pressence through Communion)

The ritual caries what happened in that moment to every moment throughout history

The same God at Passover, is the same God at the last supper, is the same God at our communion table

When we enter it, it is not just a stale ritual

It is a source of our identity, it is an offering of redemption for us, and in it we are connected once again to the Same God that made us

Communion

Intro

In a rush of confusion and fear, the Hebrews ate before escaping Egypt. In a night of confusion and fear, Christs’ disciples ate before understanding his life and ministry. In our lives of confusion and fear, Christ invites us to the table of love and peace. Come into the light of God’s love, leaving behind the confusion and fear. Come into the light of Christ’s wisdom, embracing the freedom to love and serve. Come to the table. Come to the feast. All are welcome here.

THE GREAT THANKSGIVING

The Lord be with you.

And also with you.

Lift up your hearts.

We lift them up to the Lord.

Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.

It is right to give our thanks and praise.

And so, with your people on earth and all the company of heaven we praise your name and join their unending hymn:

Holy, holy, holy Lord, God of power and might, heaven and earth are full of your glory. Hosanna in the highest. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest.

Holy are you, and blessed is your Son Jesus Christ. By the baptism of his suffering, death, and resurrection you gave birth to your Church, delivered us from slavery to sin and death, and made with us a new covenant by water and the Spirit.

On the night in which he gave himself up for us, he took bread, gave thanks to you, broke the bread, gave it to his disciples, and said: "Take, eat; this is my body which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me."

When the supper was over, he took the cup, gave thanks to you, gave it to his disciples, and said: "Drink from this, all of you; this is my blood of the new covenant, poured out for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me."

(Pastor speaks.) And so, in remembrance of these your mighty acts in Jesus Christ, we offer ourselves in praise and thanksgiving as a holy and living sacrifice, in union with Christ's offering for us, as we proclaim the mystery of faith.

Christ has died; Christ is risen; Christ will come again.

Pour out your Holy Spirit on us gathered here, and on these gifts of bread and wine. Make them be for us the body and blood of Christ, that we may be for the world the body of Christ, redeemed by his blood.

Through your Son Jesus Christ, with the Holy Spirit in your holy Church, all honor and glory is yours, almighty Father, now and forever. Amen.

Prayer after communion

Holy God, we have been blessed as a community not only to hear Scripture read and proclaimed, but to gather at your table. You have forgiven us, sustained us and loved us. Now send us out into the world to share the gospel with both our words and actions. Let your light shine through us so that others can know you. Amen.