order of worship — Andy James

Words of Direction

September 13, 2015 By Andy James

a sermon on Deuteronomy 30:11-20 and 1 Thessalonians 5:12-28
preached on September 13, 2015, at the First Presbyterian Church of Whitestone

At some point in recent months, I came to a startling realization about myself. As I listened carefully to myself speak, as I observed what I said to others along the way, I noticed something that gave me pause: apparently I like telling people what to do. Now this may come as no surprise to some of you—after all, I’ve been pastor here for ten years, so it is inevitable that I have told every one of you what to do at one point or another!

But I was startled and surprised by all this mostly when I realized how I seem to leave every conversation with some sort of imperative sentence. “Email me with the details.” “Let me know how it goes tomorrow.” “Call me later.” “Have a good trip.” “Take care.” In English grammar, we tend to use imperative sentences like these to tell someone what to do: “Take out the garbage.” “Call the plumber.” “Stop hitting your brother.” Somehow these seem a little more intense than those parting words that I catch myself saying all the time, but they are so very similar in grammatical structure that I sometimes wonder if they really feel any different, if my parting words intended to be gentle and graceful come across as more forceful and demanding. I don’t think I am saying all this so much because I like to tell people what to do—I just hope that others leave our encounters with a word of hope, a statement that has movement and motion for what is ahead in life, words of direction for the time and space ahead.

Words of direction like this are very common in the life of faith. The Bible is filled with passages where its writers try to tell us what to do, whether it be in the list of “Thou shalt not”s of the Ten Commandments, among the extensive holiness and purity laws of the Old Testament, or even in the New Testament’s suggestions of different ways of life for the early church. When it is at its best, the Bible’s words of direction are not so much laws laid out for us to follow but invitations for God’s people to lead the world into a new and different way of life. Each week, we embody this important tradition in our worship as we close with a charge and benediction, with words that remind us of how we are called to live out our faith in the world and that share God’s blessing in our lives.

Our two readings today show us two important examples of these parting words of direction from the history of Israel and the life of the early church. First, we heard the conclusion of Moses’ farewell address to the Israelites from the book of Deuteronomy. Moses had led the people out of Egypt, through the waters of the sea, into the wilderness, and to the edge of the promised land. As Joshua prepared to take over leadership of the final steps of the journey, Moses offered them these final words of hope and direction. These instructions were very clear and simple: choose life. The Israelites had chosen life before: they had found a way to survive the horrid conditions of their enslavement in Egypt, they found hope in God to carry them through a difficult journey in the wilderness, and they welcomed God’s commandments as they slowly but surely embraced the covenant of Sinai.

However, in this momentous time, as they approached the beginning of a radically different day in their life together, Moses reminded them that they needed to keep choosing life in the days ahead. For the Israelites, this meant recommitting themselves to the things that had sustained them in the wilderness: loving the Lord, walking in God’s ways, observing God’s commandments, decrees, and ordinances, and holding fast to God’s presence in their midst. Moses knew that other temptations would quickly swirl around them, that the religious practice of their new neighbors would loom large over them, that they would be distracted from attention to God by the challenges and possibilities of life in this new place, and so he reminded them from the very beginning to choose the way of life in God. As the promise of the promised land was revealed, as Moses’ leadership of the people came to an end, these words of direction gave them hope for the transformation that lie ahead.

The early church picked up on this tradition of offering such parting words of direction, too. Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians is actually considered by most scholars to be the oldest surviving writing in our New Testament, so these words of direction in our second reading give us a glimpse of how the early church understood their call to new life just twenty-five years after Jesus’ death and resurrection. In that moment, many believers thought that the end of time was very near. The gospel message was so imperative to them because they understood that Christ would be returning soon—if not in a year or two, almost certainly within their lifetimes. Some people took this as permission to live in total freedom, maybe to sit around and do nothing but wait, maybe to act without concern for any earthly consequences, maybe even to be angry with one another, because the things of this world would not matter when Jesus returned.

So when Paul closed his letter to the church with this string of imperatives, he gave them a very different direction for their life together. Even after nearly two thousand years, even when we no longer think that the end of things might come as soon as tomorrow, these words of direction give us an understanding of the ethic of life that we are called to live. Paul’s commands here are an incredible litany of transformational life that has stood the test of time and still are remarkable words of direction for us. Show respect and love to one another. Encourage those who struggle to find a different way. Be patient with everyone. “See that none of you repays evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to all.” “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances…”

Sometimes I wonder if the church had lived like Paul suggested all these years, if our actions had been clear enough for others to see and follow, then maybe the end of things would have come by now after all. No matter how much we might wish that things had already come to an end, regardless of how much has changed in our worldview and our belief since those early days of the church, Paul’s words of direction here can still shape our own lives in this changing age as we seek to live in hope, peace, and love with one another.

Each week, as we close worship in words of charge and blessing, we continue in this tradition of sharing words of direction for our lives. I certainly don’t think that I belong in a class anywhere near Moses and Paul in coming up with such words, so thankfully their words can often stand in for my own—and make me feel a little less like I am annoyingly telling everyone what to do once again! The words of direction that close our worship sometimes need to be specific to where we are as a congregation, maybe lifting up a part of the sermon, maybe even reusing a line of the last hymn, maybe fitting a particular time or moment in the church year. Other times, we need to hear something more familiar from scripture, perhaps something like these words from 1 Thessalonians, to remind us of the long line of faithful Christians who have sought to live in this way of hope, peace, and love. These words certainly call each of us individually to act in a new way, but they also call us as a community to live as God’s people, to seek the well-being of all God’s creation, to embody the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ with everyone we meet.

Ultimately, I think that the specific words of direction that we share with one another as our worship comes to an end matter less than the fact that we share them at all. When we offer any words of hope and promise to one another, we are given a reminder of how God calls us to live in new ways in our daily lives, to be God’s transformed and transformative people each and every day in our world that so very much needs new life. So each week, as we hear these words of direction, and each day, as we share these words of hope with one another, may God strengthen us to live in love, rejoice always, pray without ceasing, and live in the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ that is with us today, tomorrow, and always. Thanks be to God! Amen.

A Meal to Bring Us Together

September 6, 2015 By Andy James

a sermon on 1 Corinthians 11:17-34 and Luke 24:13-35
preached on September 6, 2015, at the First Presbyterian Church of Whitestone

There’s nothing quite like a meal to bring us together. When a new colleague comes to the neighborhood, when I want to get to know someone better, when an old friend comes to town and we need to catch up, when someone just needs a listening ear, I prefer not just to sit down for a chat—I do everything I can to find time to share a meal together. No matter the menu, regardless of the location, whether the service is bad or good, something special happens across that table. I can’t really explain why, but I do know that there’s nothing quite like a meal to bring us together.

Today as we look at the Lord’s Supper in our summer series exploring the parts of the worship service, our two texts give us some insights into how this meal that we share here brings us together. Both texts connect us to the origins of this feast. Paul gives us words that tell the story of a meal hosted by Jesus on the night of his arrest that we use every time we gather here, and Luke describes how a simple, unplanned evening meal on the day of resurrection became a place to meet Jesus. In their different settings and different stories, our two texts today show us a meal that brings us together.

First, in Paul’s record of what we know as the words of institution of the Lord’s Supper, we get a glimpse of some of the problems that the early church faced as they tried to share this meal. The church in Corinth clearly had a lot of issues, and we’ll be talking more about those in Bible study starting this week, but Paul was particularly frustrated at how the inclusion of a meal in the worship practice of the church was driving people apart. The early church considered the Lord’s Supper as a time for all the people to come together to share a substantial meal—with portions a good bit larger than even the largest chunks of bread and grape juice that has become the norm today—but in Corinth, the great variety of people in the church had made this meal a very disconnected affair. Some people brought plenty to eat for themselves but wouldn’t share with others, emerging from the feast bloated and drunk. Others were not able to bring anything and so were left to go hungry. This meal to bring people together across all their divisions was becoming highly effective at driving them apart!

In response to all this, Paul reminded them of the words of institution that were surely familiar to them, making it clear that this feast was not so much about the food itself but about the gathering of God’s people to share it. He went on to caution the Corinthians that they needed to be prepared to share this meal. “Examine yourselves,” he told them, “…for all who eat and drink without discerning the body, eat and drink judgment against themselves.” As they sat down to eat, he wanted them to think about the whole body of Christ to which they were connected, to remember that they did not eat on their own but rather were brought together in the midst of this meal.

The church has thought much of this examination over the last two millennia. For many decades, Presbyterian churches required those who wished to receive communion to present a token at the table that had been given to them if they had been judged worthy to commune during a visit from elders of the church in the days before communion was served. And even today, some churches include a time of what they call “fencing the table” based directly on Paul’s words here during the introduction to the communion liturgy. But what seems to have mattered to Paul here was not one’s general sinfulness or status of forgiveness but rather one’s readiness to come together with others in this meal, for this table is not a place of personal devotion but a place to share a meal to bring us together.

Our second reading from the gospel according to Luke reminds us of this all the more. After a journey from Jerusalem to Emmaus, filled with an unexpected conversation with a stranger along the way about all that they had experienced in the death of Jesus and the reports of his resurrection, these two disciples settled down at table with their guest to share a meal. As their guest blessed and broke the bread that they are to share, their eyes were opened to discover that they had been walking and talking with Jesus all along the way! Their experience of joy was momentary as Jesus disappeared from their midst, but they quickly returned to Jerusalem to share their experience with the other disciples in hopes that they might encounter Jesus again very soon. Even though they saw him again, they knew that there was something special about this and every meal that could bring them together with Jesus.

In the many centuries since these original descriptions of this meal, the church has integrated the Lord’s Supper more clearly into our life of worship and thought long and hard about what it means. Along the way, we all too often have gotten lost in the details. We have given this meal so many different names—communion, the Lord’s Supper, agape feast, Eucharist, Mass—that we get lost in what we call it before we even think about why we do it. Even worse, wars have been fought, families divided, and lives lost over exactly what happens when we break this bread and share this cup. We have too often demanded that those who come to this table understand what is going on here, forgetting that ultimately this is a place of wonder we place our faith and trust and hope in God as we receive a sign and seal of God’s grace that we can see, touch, feel, smell, and taste for ourselves as we are mysteriously brought together with God and with innumerable saints to share this incredible meal. When we get too focused on the meaning, we miss the bigger point here, that this is a meal to bring us together.

Our intense focus on the meaning of what happens here has made it all the easier to resist the call to let this meal bring us together. The news of recent weeks has been filled with far too many stories of people pushed apart and away from this and other tables. Violence divides communities in our city and nation, and we prefer methods of punishment that insist on exchanging an eye for an eye rather than seeking a path of restoration, reconciliation, and transformation. Evidence continues to emerge that points to systematic mistreatment of the poor and minorities by the criminal justice system in our city, state, and nation, not to mention all too many places where they are very directly deprived of their rights. So many who are seeking to be president of our nation are using rhetoric that excludes immigrants, the poor, LGBT persons, and others, pushing people away from the common table of our land. And beyond our shores, European political leaders have responded to the growing refugee crisis there by turning away people who do not look or believe like them in ways that eerily echo words and actions before and during World War II that contributed to the mass murder of millions of Jews and others in Germany and beyond.

Amid all these loud cries around us telling us that we are better when we are apart, it is difficult to hear the call to sit down and share a meal like this one to bring us together. But this table reminds us that there is another way. At this table, we can glimpse the unity that we will have in the kingdom of God so that we can be strengthened to live a little more like that in the days ahead.

The incredible film Places in the Heart offers a little glimpse of a meal that can bring us together. The movie chronicles one family’s journey through the challenges of murder, racism, economic distress, and even natural disaster. In the end, only sheer endurance and an incredible portion of grace bring the people of Waxahachie, Texas, and especially widow Edna Spalding and her family through to see a new day. Time and again in the movie, we are taken to the table, first the many tables set for Sunday lunch that are interrupted by word of the town drunk on the loose with a gun who ends up shooting the sheriff, the Spalding’s table that shifts from hosting the family meal to offering a place for the dead sheriff’s body to be prepared for burial, even the simple tables under the trees where the sheriff’s widow constantly makes sure that the black migrant workers she employs are fed.

All these scenes at table culminate in a moving gathering at the Lord’s Table, where characters gather across all the lines that had divided them to share a simple meal of bread and grape juice. As the trays are passed along the pews, women and men, old and young, blind and sighted, black and white, living and dead, even murderer and victim—all share the bread of heaven, the cup of salvation, the peace of God that comes in this strange feast. I know of no better image that embodies the wonder of this great feast that brings together those who have been set against one another, that unites us across every imaginable division, that lifts us up to sit in the presence of Christ himself to share this incredible feast of heaven and earth.

So as we gather at this table today, may God’s presence surround us as we share this meal, so that every time we sit at this or any table, we might know the incredible gift of this meal that brings us together with one another and God until we sit at table together in the kingdom of God forever and ever. Thanks be to God! Amen.

Playing in the Water

August 30, 2015 By Andy James

a sermon on Exodus 2:1-10 and Galatians 3:23-29
preached on August 30, 2015, at the First Presbyterian Church of Whitestone

In my ten years as pastor here, I have enjoyed bringing many new and different ideas to our worship, but any time I have done something new around baptism, I am certain to hear about it. When the time comes to baptize someone of whatever age, when someone realizes that Baptism of the Lord Sunday is coming up, or even when one of you notices that the cover is off the baptismal font before worship, I have this vision of someone rolling his eyes, saying, “There Andy goes again, playing in the water in church.” I guess you could say I have a bit of a reputation of playing in the water—and I must say that I am just a little bit proud of it!

Interest in remembering baptism is not everywhere in the church. In far too many churches, the baptismal font is shoved over to the side. We don’t use it all that much, the logic goes, so why should it get in the way of everything else that we are doing? After all, the only time this piece of furniture matters is when we are baptizing someone, and when that happens, we can put it where we need it. There’s no need to play in the water until then.

But baptism is where everything begins for us. These strange waters are where each of us begins our life of faith. This simple font is the place where we see God’s grace poured out for everyone. These wonderful waters give us confidence and hope for every step of our journey. If we take baptism seriously, we can’t push the baptismal font off to the side, because baptism becomes an integral part of our worship week after week, whether we are welcoming someone new to our community in this sacrament, remembering and recommitting ourselves to the covenant God makes with us in these waters, or simply living out our faith with confidence because we know that our journey has taken us through these waters. God calls us to be people who love to play in the water.

Our two scripture readings this morning remind us of how important it is to play in the water. First, our Old Testament lesson gives us a glimpse of what can happen when someone is drawn out of the water. This story about the birth of Moses recounts a time when Egypt’s frustration with the Israelites hit its highest point. The Pharaoh was so afraid of the Israelites’ increasing power that he ordered that all their sons to be killed at birth, first by the midwives who delivered them and then by drowning them in the Nile. In the face of this edict, Moses’ mother hid him for as long as she could, but eventually she had to set him out on the river in a papyrus basket, hoping that someone would save him. The daughter of Pharaoh found the baby in the river as she went down to bathe in it, and she showed mercy to him. She asked her Hebrew maid—who just happened to be the baby’s sister!—to find a nurse for the boy, then when he was weaned, Pharaoh’s daughter raised Moses as her own son. “She named him Moses, ‘because,’ she said, ‘I drew him out of the water.”

Moses—the largest figure in the history of Judaism, the one to whom the first five books of the Bible are attributed, one of the only humans to speak directly to God and survive—Moses is drawn up out of the water, water that could have been the death of him but that in the end gave him a pathway to new life. This was just the first time that water mattered to Moses. The waters of the Nile were center stage as he gave voice to God’s plagues upon the people of Egypt. The waters of the sea parted at Moses’ command so that the Israelites could go through on dry land. Even the waters of another river, the Jordan, framed Moses’ first and last view of the promised land as his days came to an end. Moses knew as well as anyone the importance of playing in the water.

But Moses was not alone there. The apostle Paul, in our second reading from his letter to the churches of Galatia, shows us that the early church was also quite good at playing in the water. In Galatians, Paul set out to help this early church deal with some people who came to them to tell them that Gentile converts to Christianity needed to be circumcised—to become Jews—before they could be full members of the Christian community. Paul uses what was likely a familiar statement from the liturgy of the early church to make his point:

As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.
There is no longer Jew or Greek,
there is no longer slave or free,
there is no longer male and female;
for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.

For Paul, baptism makes it clear that all the things that attempt to divide us in this world do not matter to God. These three divisions of ethnic background (“Jew or Greek”), socioeconomic status (“slave or free”), and gender (“male and female”) may not directly cover all the categories of the world that we use to divide ourselves, but in lifting up these three divisions, Paul shows that no other divisions carry any weight in light of the gift of God in Jesus Christ. In baptism, God places a sign and seal upon us so that we can remember that we are children of God, that we have been clothed with Christ, and that all our human divisions cannot and will not divide us from God. These are incredible and wondrous waters that change us and make us new—why would we choose not to play here?

We can and should play in the waters of baptism anytime, remembering our baptism each and every day, but these waters of baptism belong to the life of worship, and we are called to play in them here. Baptism is not a private rite of passage or confirmation of faith but a very public moment when we recognize that God is at work among us. In baptism, God gives us an outward sign of the very inward seal of grace that has touched us long before the first drop of water touches our bodies. In baptism, God offers us a way to touch and feel God’s love entering our lives. And in baptism, God grants us a very physical glimpse of the divine mercy that sustains us each and every day. When we welcome a new sister or brother into the community through baptism, we do it together, gathering at the same place where we came to see and hear and touch the grace of God so that we can give thanks for this incredible gift even as we pray that God will seal it anew on yet another who is seeking to know God’s promise in their lives. Everything that we do in worship connects to the love, grace, and mercy of God that we find every time we come and play in these waters.

Sometimes our little font isn’t the best at showing us the wonder of these waters. The other day, I had the chance to see the newly-renovated sanctuary at St. Luke’s Church here in Whitestone—and especially their new baptismal font. Their font is made of beautiful granite, featuring two levels, with a waterfall between them so that the sound of moving water echoes throughout the church. It is large enough that a baby can be fully immersed in it, or an adult can step in up to her ankles and then have water poured over her head. Now I don’t expect that we’ll be installing anything quite like that anytime soon, but whatever it looks like, however large or small it may be, the place where we share the waters of baptism reminds us of the gift that we enjoy anytime we can come to play in these waters.

While each one of us receives this sacrament only once, that should never keep us from playing in these waters again and again. When we play in the waters of baptism, we remember how God claims us as God’s own here. When we play in these waters, we are reminded of the abundance of God’s love. And when we play in these waters, we remember how much we need God’s amazing grace to continue to wash over us and make us new. So every time we gather, may we remember the joy and wonder of baptism as we are united with all our sisters and brothers who play in these waters as we celebrate God making all things new in Jesus Christ our Lord. Thanks be to God! Amen.

An Offering of Thanks and Praise

August 23, 2015 By Andy James

a sermon on Deuteronomy 26:1-11; Acts 4:32-37
preached on August 23, 2015, at the First Presbyterian Church of Whitestone

I suspect that the offering might be one of the least-liked parts of the worship service. I’m not talking about the wonderful and beautiful music that Julie blesses us with week after week but rather the act of gathering the gifts of the people as we worship, the strange process of passing offering plates back and forth across our pews to collect the monetary gifts of those who come to worship. Any dislike of this part of the service is probably not even about the process of passing the offering plates either but rather rooted in a general discomfort that many people feel around giving money—especially when we know that other people might be watching.

I think most everyone probably agrees that it is a good thing to bring our gifts to God, but there has not always been clear agreement about the best way to do this. We have biblical records like both of our readings this morning that describe a physical act of bringing gifts to God, of sharing very physical items with the religious institutions or the church community to show a measure of devotion to God and the community. As the early church developed its liturgy and practice further, it shifted away from bringing the monetary gifts of its members in the offering to instead bring the bread and wine that would be shared in communion. In the medieval church, though, as the people’s participation in communion became less frequent, the bringing of bread and wine in the offering was replaced by a procession of the people’s monetary gifts. In the Reformation, many liturgies did away with all this formality entirely, attempting to take a bit of the show out of giving so that our financial gifts would be offered in a way that was less about flaunting wealth and more about a gracious response to God’s grace in our lives. At some point in the centuries since, the public collection of the offering returned, though in some places this trend is starting to shift a bit nowadays with the rise of online giving to churches—one even we have joined in in recent months!

However church practice may change with emerging technologies or frustrations with flaunting wealth, bringing offerings is likely to remain an important part of our worship for a long time to come. But why? Why not just put an offering plate or a locked box at the exit and ask that people drop something in on their way in or out? Why not try convincing everyone to move to online giving and gain back the three or four minutes that we take to collect the offering and hear the offertory? Why not find some other way to collect the gifts of worshipers so that we can remember that the whole of worship is offering the gifts of our whole lives to God?

First of all, bringing offerings as part of worship goes back many, many centuries. Both of our readings this morning describe how bringing offerings were part of worship in the life of ancient Israel and in the early church. In our reading from Deuteronomy, as the Israelites prepared to enter the promised land, they were given instructions to take the first fruits of the harvest for the worship of God. The people were to give thanks for for God’s gift of land, God’s gift of freedom in the exodus, and God’s provision for the people in the wilderness. This thanksgiving was important enough that it came as part of worship, in the place where the people gathered to show their praise to God, as all the people, regardless of religious practice or ethnic origin, began their worship by celebrating “with all the bounty that the Lord your God has given to you and to your house.” The first fruits offered in this moment were enough for everyone to share as they gathered to give thanks for all that God had given.

The Jewish tradition of bringing offerings in worship carried over into the early church. The letters of Paul and others and the book of Acts give us insight into the early church’s tradition and practice of bringing offerings that shows how the church connected offerings in worship to the life of the community. The offering was the source of the community’s common support for one another as they held all their possessions in common and used the wealth of the privileged to meet the needs of the poor. By gathering offerings in worship, they came together with one heart and soul to share the grace that they came to know together in Christ.

Beyond honoring these past practices, gathering the offering as part of worship makes it clear that offering these gifts is an integral part of how we praise God together. We do not just give out of obligation—we give because we want to offer praise to God for all that we have received. Our financial gifts are just one part of all of our offerings that we bring in worship. Our songs of praise, our prayers of thanksgiving and intercession, even our proclamation and hearing of God’s Word come together with our finanical gifts and so much more so that the whole of our worship might reflect our gratitude for all that we have received from God.

In the same way, our individual gifts do not stand on their own—instead, the gathered offering reminds us that our individual gifts come together with the offerings of our sisters and brothers in the faith to be a part of God’s work in the world. The offering is a communal task, where ultimately the amount of our individual gifts matters far less than our collective commitment that shows our gratitude for God’s many gifts and our commitment to join in God’s work of transformation in the world.

Interestingly, the collection of the offering is one of the most carefully choreographed moments in our worship. Our instructions for our greeters who collect the offering are surprisingly specific about how it should be done—and having experienced worship in a number of other churches over the years, I think it is fair to say that our practices are actually quite simple compared to many others! Still, some of these practices for receiving the offering can easily confuse what we are really doing here. We do not bring our gifts as a sacrifice to God, hoping to appease God in some way by giving enough money to hold off divine retribution for our sinfulness. We do not collect the offering in worship so that we can place the monetary gifts of the people on some sort of divine altar, giving them special treatment that sets them apart from all the other gifts that we bring to worship and offer to God in the fullness of our lives. And we do not bring our gifts forward to show off what we have given, hoping that everyone along the way will notice how these plates are overflowing with envelopes and checks and cash and even coins to support the institutional operations or even mission of the church.

Instead, the offering—the monetary gifts we bring, the way we collect and recognize those gifts in worship, and the many other gifts of our lives that we present to God—the whole offering that we offer throughout our worship is ultimately about showing our deep gratitude to God each and every day, in our financial giving and in the giving of our whole lives.

Many years ago, one of the advisors to the national collegiate ministry team I served on told us about how she embodied her gratitude to God through the offering in worship. She had a personal commitment—a spiritual practice, even—that she would always put something, the smallest bill in her purse, in the offering plate every time it was passed as a mark of her deep gratitude and thanks to God. If God could never stop caring for us, then she could never stop showing her thanks in her life—and from her pocketbook. Sometimes this was easy, she told us—especially when she had a $1 or $5 bill in her purse. But if the smallest bill was a $20, it was a good bit harder to keep her commitment, though she did it anyway.

Over the years, I have tried to follow her thoughtful and considered practice myself. I don’t do it here—it is a bit awkward to fish out my wallet and drop in a bill when I am leading worship!—but when I am worshiping elsewhere and the time comes for the offering, I embody my deep gratitude for God’s grace by putting something in the offering plate if at all possible, sometimes even asking a friend who is with me if I can join in her offering and pay her back later if my wallet is empty or the smallest bill a bit too large for the moment! Even if this practice isn’t feasible for some of us, even if we faithfully give what we can to the church once a month or online or through some other method, the act of sharing the offering in worship reminds us to pause in this moment and give thanks to God in some tangible way for the incredible gifts that we have received.

So as we bring our gifts to God week after week, may we always be united with one another in sharing not only our abundance but even more our gratitude for God’s amazing grace so that our whole lives might reflect our thanks and praise for the God who gives us life and invites us to share that life with the world. Thanks be to God! Amen.

A Prayer for All Peoples

August 16, 2015 By Andy James

a sermon on Nehemiah 1:1-11; 1 Timothy 2:1-7
preached on August 16, 2015, at the First Presbyterian Church of Whitestone

A few weeks ago, when we were talking about the passing of the peace, I mentioned that it was one of the parts of worship that I was told by the pastor nominating committee that was non-negotiable in worship here. The other part of worship I was told that I could not get rid of was the prayers of the people!

The First Presbyterian Church of Whitestone has quite a reputation when it comes to the prayers of the people. One of my colleagues who preached here regularly before my arrival as pastor still tells the story of how someone many years ago once told her that she was a little sad that she had not managed to let Whitestone know about a particular prayer request. Still, she assured my colleague, “I’m not worried about it. The Whitestone church prays for everyone, so even if I don’t tell them, I’m sure they have prayed for my friend anyway!”

Our reputation regarding the prayers of the people is a very good thing. While the Word may stand at the center of our worship, the prayers of the people stand at its heart, embodying in this hour we spend together the deep reality that we are people who must look beyond this gathering, reminding us that there is much joy and sorrow in our lives and our world that we have to keep before us even as we gather for worship, and helping us to remember those who our world—and even us sometimes—might rather forget.

Even in a place where we understand the importance of praying for one another and our world, it is often useful to step back as we do today to think about how and why we do these things that are so important for us. Our readings this morning from Nehemiah and 1 Timothy give us a good sense of why the prayers of the people stand at the heart of our worship.

First, Nehemiah shows us what it is like to bear the prayers of the people before God. He was quite experienced at carrying things of great value and immense importance—his day job was serving as cupbearer to the king of Persia, the nation where he and other Jews were in exile. As cupbearer to the king, he was responsible for making sure that the king’s wine and food were safe for his consumption. But his role and position changed quite dramatically as his brother brought him the concerns of the people who remained at their former home in Judah, for he took these concerns before God in his prayer that forms the core of this reading today.

While I don’t want us to emulate Nehemiah’s prayer every week, we can still learn a few things from looking at how he prayed to God in this moment. He opened with extended praise and adoration of God and continued with an admission of his own sinfulness and the sinfulness of his people. Then Nehemiah called upon God to remember God’s previous promises, to recall the hope of the exodus and bring the people back together. Finally, Nehemiah asked that God be attentive to this prayer and grant the people the mercy that they need.

While we may not be praying for these exact things in our life together, we should certainly take note of how Nehemiah’s prayer focused not on his own situation but on that of others very much removed from his situation. The cupbearer to the king of the empire that ruled over his homeland was praying for the people who were suffering back home. This man who had accomplished much and made his way to a position of such power and importance took time out to remember others. If Nehemiah’s prayer teaches us nothing else, we can learn the importance of making space in our prayer for others, of remembering before God those whom we too easily forget, of praying for peace and reconciliation in ways that go beyond our expectations and open us to new possibilities in our world, of taking the opportunity in prayer to look beyond those immediately before us to consider those who might not have the words and space to pray for themselves.

The instructions for prayer in First Timothy give us a little further guidance about what we might include in our prayers. In giving his instructions to his pupil regarding proper worship, the writer here opens with directions for prayer, most notably that “everyone” should be included in those prayers, with special attention to “kings and all who are in high positions.” For this writer, prayer helps to move the world toward “a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and dignity.”

The church has taken his word seriously over the centuries, for John Calvin’s model prayers of the people include two paragraphs of prayers for government and civic leaders, one paragraph of prayers for church leaders, one paragraph asking God to turn all hearts to God, and one paragraph calling for mercy on the sick, ill, and those in prison. While our emphases in prayer have shifted a bit to include a little more for those in need and a little less for the civic powers of the world, we certainly keep this writer’s emphasis on prayer for civic leaders before us, too—and we here in Whitestone have certainly done our best to pray for everyone along the way, as my colleague so fondly remembers!

Our prayers of the people each week in worship build on these scriptural prayers to help connect us to one another and to God. As the Directory for Worship in our Presbyterian Book of Order describes so well,

Prayer is at the heart of worship. In prayer, through the Holy Spirit, people seek after and are found by the one true God who has been revealed in Jesus Christ. They listen and wait upon God, call God by name, remember God’s gracious acts, and offer themselves to God. (W-2.1001)

While I may be the one saying these prayers out loud as we gather for worship each week, the prayers of the people are exactly that, the prayers of all of us, the joys and concerns that we carry with us into our time together, the sorrow and the rejoicing that define our humanity and our world, the prayers that we bear forth from our lives to God. This time of prayer is a time for remembering: remembering the people and places where we have seen God’s love at work, remembering those times and places and people we are tempted to forget as we journey through the everyday, remembering how God’s wisdom comes in unexpected times and ways to show us a new way forward in our lives and our world. And the prayers of the people helps us to remember to pray for the world in our knowing yet beyond our control, when we remember those places in our lives and our world where we need God’s reconciling presence, when we pray for wisdom for leaders in government and society to live in the peace that God invites us to share, when we express our longings and seek God’s guidance for the fullness of the new creation to become real.

So this time of prayer that stands at the heart of our worship is truly the prayer of all people, a prayer for something more than what there is now, a prayer for a new and different way to take hold, a prayer for comfort and healing and hope amid anything and everything that comes our way. This prayer does not replace the prayers that we offer on our own, but it gathers up all that we bear to God in a prayer of this whole community, recognizing that so many of the joys and burdens that I carry with me are so much like the joys and burdens that you carry with you.

The opening and closing lines of the sung prayers of the people that we will offer in a few moments express so very well all that we do in this time:

There is a longing in our hearts, O Lord, for you to reveal yourself to us.
There is a longing in our hearts for love we only find in you, our God.

So may our prayers in worship this day gather up the prayers of all God’s people, that in this time of sacred sharing and this offering from the depths of our hearts we might know the comfort that comes from God amid all that comes our way, share the wondrous love of God that shines into every moment of our lives, and walk in the peace that God is making in our world as we join in God’s work of reconciliation and new life. Thanks be to God! Amen.