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- Worship at Waldensian Presbyterian Church at a Crisis Point in American Life
The assassination of a 31-year-old political activist twelve days ago and the intense anger and emotion that many have expressed in its wake have left many Americans profoundly unsettled. Those who were in the worship service the Sunday after the shooting at the Waldensian Presbyterian Church in Valdese, North Carolina, had the opportunity to grieve for what is happening in their country and to put their feelings in perspective.
The co-pastors at Waldensian Presbyterian Church, Matt and Rachel Matthews, who prepared the worship service, agreed to share the pastoral prayer and the sermon from that service with the American Waldensian Society.
The photograph above of a pew in the Waldensian Presbyterian Church is explained in the sermon.
Prayers of the People
Sovereign God, you are our God. We gather this morning as your people, praising your deeds, in awe of your mystery. We want to follow where you lead. But, this week, I hear you talking to your prophet Jeremiah, asking him, “What fault did your ancestors find in me, that they strayed so far from me?” Are you asking that of us too? Lord, after another week of violence, it seems we are indeed so far from you that we cannot find you.
Where are you Lord?
Where are you Lord, while your people give in to hate and violence?
Where are you Lord, while your people turn to revenge and greed?
Where are you Lord, while innocents die in the crossfires of the tools of war?
We are surrounded by barren lands and long stretches of deserts. We are parched.
You gave us fertile fields but we have leached them of their life.
Lord, beat our swords into plowshares and our guns into pipes flowing with water.
Take away all the training, strategizing, and options for violence and war. Take away the buying and selling of lives who have dreams and aspirations of children and a future, who just want a chance to live another day. Give us back peace and righteousness, plant for us a harvest and sow us seeds that will grow.
You sent your son to save us but we have not heeded his invitation to follow, just like we spurned so many of your prophets before him. Turn our hearts to Christ’s way, that we might bring healing to those who are sick, care to the lonely, welcome to the stranger, food for the hungry. There are those in our midst who we lift up even now who are among those sick, recovering, grieving and needing your care. We name them in our hearts.
Again we ask, where are you Lord?
Turn our heads to the healers, the doctors, the nurses, and social workers.
Turn our heads to those who satisfy our hunger, to the farmers and dieticians and grocers and cooks and waiters.
When we ask where are you, turn our heads to those who are planting and growing and connecting and comforting and bringing random acts of kindness into our lives.
Turn our heads to the glimpses of your kingdom right in our midst, even as Christ did so long ago. Help us walk toward your light, not away from it.
We praise your deeds, O Lord. You are our strength and our comfort. Strengthen our hands, steady our legs, nourish our bodies for the work you would have us do in this world even as you bring it into the next.
Our Father . . .
Make Way, Welcome all-Comers, and Rejoice
A Sermon by Matt Matthews
Luke 14:1, 7-14; Jeremiah 2:4-13
This old joke hinges on understanding that “long distance” phone calls used to cost more money. Many of you remember this; some of you never knew.
A fellow decides he wanted to tour the churches of the world. In Chicago, there was a church with a golden phone in the lobby with a sign affixed: “$10,000 per call.” He asked the pastor what this was about. The pastor explained that the $10,000 phone call will connect the caller directly to heaven. The fellow toured churches all over the U.S. They all had the golden phone. Each call cost $10,000.
The fellow was surprised when he went to Scotland. There was a golden phone in the sanctuary, but its accompanying sign read “10-cents per call.” He asked the pastor about the phone, about the sign. “Oh,” the pastor said. “The 10-cent phone call will get you directly in touch with heaven.”
“But why is it so inexpensive?” the fellow asked. “In the U.S., it costs $10,000.”
“Well son,” the pastor said, “you’re in Scotland now. And heaven is a local call.”
* * *
You don’t have to go to Scotland (or the Piedmont of Italy) to be near heaven.
Jesus might tell us that heaven can be as close as your next meal. In the examples from Luke 14:7ff, Jesus describes a meal in which all people are welcomed. Everyone respects everyone else by giving up the best seats for each other. And this is not about being polite; it’s about, as Paul would say, outdoing one another in showing honor (Romans 12:10).
A meal like this is heaven-on-earth.
But that’s not the table Jesus was sitting at when he made these observations. He was in the home of the religious elite, a Pharisee. Not everyone was welcomed at this table—only those who were invited. Jesus noticed the absent: women, the poor, lepers, children, tax collectors and other sinners, and the likes of Samaritans.
Jesus was likely sitting at a U-shaped table or arrangement. The U was opened at one end so that servers could easily get to the table with more provisions. The couches at the outside of that U were the least desirable seats. The couches closer to the center were the places of honor. (This U-shaped arrangement, called a triclinium, was common in the Greco-Roman world.) As the guest, Jesus would likely have been offered the place of honor.
It’s within this context that Jesus criticizes the status quo. Do you see how this meal is taking shape? This is not how you should do it. Heaven is near only when you let the poor on the outside in. Heaven is near only when people with status give up their seats of honor to people without status. Heaven is near only when we pass the bread to everyone and there’s enough to go around for everybody.
Carved into the communion table of the Black Mountain Presbyterian Church in Black Mountain, NC, are the words, “Has everyone been fed?” That’s what Jesus seems to intend in the gospels—that all be fed. And those with status yield their seats to those without status.
* * *
This sort of teaching is certainly nothing new to Jesus’ listeners. The prophets had taught it, too, and Jesus stands in the tradition of the prophets who came before him: treat strangers well. Be fair to all people. Be mindful of people without rank or status. Live God’s law with love and gratitude and generosity.
This is one reason why Jeremiah is so upset in our Old Testament text today (Jeremiah. 2:4-13). We know how to live, and yet we turn things sideways. We’ve been blessed by God, but we no longer call on God. We neglect and hurt others, and by so doing, we forsake God. Be appalled, O heavens, at this, be shocked, be utterly desolate, says the LORD (Jeremiah 2:12).
Jesus uses the example of a dinner table to talk about God’s peaceable kin-dom.
Jesus imagines a day when all are invited. And for those of us with more power or more status than others, he invites us to step to the side and welcome the people behind us to the front of the line.
* * *
Every Sunday when I stand up at the lectern or pulpit, I look for the red shawl, the red purse, the red shoes. Every Sunday, these items are placed together as a set in different places. They are meant to displace us from our comfortable spot. These red items remind us about violence worldwide perpetrated against women. Empty red shoes represent a woman lost to gender-based violence. These red garments call attention to worldwide femicide.
Every Sunday, when I see these red garments, I am appalled, shocked, and utterly desolate. I am obviously appalled and angry and sad that women and men kill one another and that women die because of violence in greater numbers than men.
I also am heartened and thankful.
I’m thankful because in our congregation, we are attempting to stand with and for these women. We stand against this violence. We stand with those around the globe who stand up for these women. Our church is a sanctuary-safe-place for all women and men. And we remember, particularly, those women in grave danger.
“When you give a luncheon or a dinner,” Jesus tells his listeners, “do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”
* * *
In our church there is no gold phone on some wall with a direct line to heaven. When we love one another, the Kin-dom of God is here. When we humbly stand together praising and serving God, the Kin-dom of heaven has dawned. When we speak the truth as honestly and as caringly as we can, and with love, God is with us. When we refuse to accept political assassinations as the norm, we stand in the kin-dom of God. When we refuse to deepen the divide that separates political parties, and groups, and races, we are preaching the Great Commandment. When we step into tough conversations with more kindness and less cruel bitterness and revenge, we honor Christ in our midst. When we set the table and everyone is welcome, Jesus himself eats with us. Jesus, after all, didn’t say the kingdom of heaven was coming; he stood before the people and said the kingdom of heaven was at hand (Matthew 3:2).
Our job is to make way, to welcome all-comers, and rejoice together.
May God help us.
AMEN.