Freelton Strabane United Church
To live our discipleship with integrity and grace.
Horseshoe Falls Regional Council
Lent 3
March 3 2024
Minister: Rev. Will Wheeler, B.A. M. Div. 905-659-3380 E-mail: [email protected]
Music Director Joan Simpson
Gathering
Come touch our souls that we may know and love you
Your quiet presence all our fears dispel
Create a space for sprit to grow in us
Let life and beauty fill us,
Come touch and bless our souls.
Come touch us now, this people who are gathered,
To break the bread and share the cup of peace;
That we may love you with our heart our soul,
Our mind, our strength, our all,
Come touch us with your grace.
(More voices 12)
Call To worship
One Gather to ponder the wisdom and law of God. Draw near to share in God’s strength and power
All the law of God is perfect, reviving the soul. God’s testimony is sure , making wise the simple.
One The precepts of God are right, rejoicing the heart God’s commandments are pure, enlightening the eyes.
All Let the words of our mouths and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O God our Rock and our Redeemer
One: A hammer. It holds within it the potential to build and tear down. To create and destroy.
All: As we journey through this time of reflection may we seek the tools we need to create the world that God would have us build.
One: Out of the ruins and ruble and struggles of this age.
All: May we seek out the ways of God and empower God’s in breaking of love.
One: We can build a beautiful city a city of God. We lay this hammer, a symbol of how we build barriers of greed.
All: The Light of God in Christ is our promise (Candle lit)
All: God builder of all we know. Your world has built on the idea that greed is good. We strive to gain more and more for ourselves and we say nothing as the great Nations gain more while poorer Nations slowly die from dept. We watch as companies see profit as being more important than people. we confess to the sin of greed and money
Forgive us when we have failed to share our resources, and failed to speak out against injustice. Help us to tear down barriers that oppress the poor and Open our hearts to be generous and loosen our tongues to speak out against poverty. Lord Give us a hammer of Justice. Hear our own private prayers of confession
Assurance of Pardon
Song Come now, O God of second chances
May we forgive ourselves
May we become your living sign
Children of God’s love
One: we Know our God as a God who renews broken covenants, who offers blessings, and who has the power to make each of us a blessing to others. Despite our frailty and weakness, when we turn toward God, God accepts us and offers us forgiveness
Epistle Exodus 20:1-17
One This is the word of the Lord
All Thanks be to God
Gospel Lesson John 2:13-22
One: The Word of God for the People of God
All Thanks be to God
Prayer
Lord as we ponder your words open our hearts that we may understand and know you. Amen
Sermon
Ah the lazy one’s load. I am sure that most people at one time or another have attempted this. It has been a long day of running errands. Errands always take a full day for reasons on unknown. The trunk is full your tired, your bladder maybe a little on the full side. You decide to make just one run from the trunk to the house. Really after all you have ten fingers. Juggling the bags, wrestling the keys and the door and trying not to think of the washroom you almost make it and a bag slips off a finger. And of course it is the bag with the eggs. Oh the pain, the pain, if only you had made two, trips.
There are moments when we take on too much
I am a collector. I have several collections. Rocks, Antiques Art among other things. I have been teased that I should have an admission fee to see the Manse collection. (It’s free and there is always a cup of tea at the Manse) When I moved into the Manse twenty one years ago it took one transport and very large truck to move me from the Manse in Castorville. Now…oh my. My night mares are not about the monster under the bed or in the closet it is about moving and down sizing.
When I was young and Going to college I lived with some other folk and kitchen had got a bit of a well a college guys kitchen and one of the room mates started into how no one cleaned and got rather snarly about it. I in somewhat of a dramatic move (although I am not known for being dramatic) took my arm and cleared the counter and proclaimed there…the counter is clean. This did not necessarily help matters but boy did it feel kind of good. I did something Is it wisdom to do something out of anger. No. It did change things in the house.
This week it is the story of Jesus clearing the Temple. Literally he was upsetting tables and whipping up the crowd.
When we think of church we think of what the sanctuary looks like. Clean ordered beautiful (but then I am biased) Regardless if you are here at Freelton Strabane or in St Peters Basilica in Rome they are a pleasant, holy space to be in.
The temple in Jerusalem in 30 CE was a whole different story. Now it is possible that it might have started off going in a different direction but in reality by the time Jesus shows up it is BBQ meets stock yard. There were laws about what needed to be offered up as burnt offerings to God for the forgiveness of sins. So there is an array of sheep, goats, birds that were there for sacrifice. The smell of burnt meat, animal noise and other animal things coupled with the general bustle of the place. Then there were the “money changers” The temple had its own coinage. You would have to exchange your street money for temple money to buy you sacrifice. It was a business and the idea of a holy place to come pray and know God was lost. The table of faith for Jesus had become cluttered with the business of and marketing of going to temple, and in a peek of the moment Jesus says, well I am sure some explicit that have been niced up for the general public reading. Is it wisdom to do something in anger. No. It did change things for Jesus.
The too much.
As we move through life we begin to put things on the table of our life. We fill the table with broken dreams, petty upsets and arguments. Grudges we hold on to. We try to cover all of this we ambitions and promises to ourselves. We cover it with resolutions and plastered on happy faces. We accumulate, we try rearranging the table but still it continues to pile up. Inevitably what is on the table begins to fall off. Some of what is lost was good. Some of the good becomes buried.
Jesus saw the good of the temple buried under all the other stuff that was going on. The Holy was lost in the market sounds.
I wonder if we at times forget to look for the Holy within ourselves. To appreciate our spirit center . We let that get buried in all that we put on the table. In my clergy time I have seen churches that have lost their Spirit center buried under power struggles, dated and ancient traditions obsession about maintain the way it always has been down. Worse the blanket of why bother piled in the center blanketing everything.
Was Jesus being courageous when he upset the temple or just being impulsive. There was anger and I would say courage to be angry.
St. Augustine wrote that: Hope has two beautiful daughters Anger, so that what must not be cannot be and Courage so that what can be will be.
Aristotle reminds us that anyone can be angry but to be angry with the right person to the right degree, at the right time, with the right purpose that is not easy.
The table can become full with too much stuff.
William Willimon states: If we talk about everything except what is important, Lord force us to confront the truth. Lord if we become too concerned about the survival of our church at the expense of the mission, take it from us and tear it down. If we hunker down behind our sacred walls push down the walls and drive us out to a world where your are lord of all
We can’t just go and flip tables or clear the counter with are arms. It didn’t work with my roommate and enviable someone has to pick up the mess.
The wisdom of age tells us that when it feels the table is becoming full with too much it is time to stop and look at the table and start to let go of what is there.
Jesus perhaps saw the temple with new eyes as he came to understand what his role would be and realized that the table that was the temple culture was not working and needed to be cleared off to see the Spiritual Center which is God.
There are times when we have to look at the table of our lives, the table of who we are as a community of faith and see that there are things that we hold onto that just don’t serve us anymore to let go of broken dreams, petty upsets and arguments and Grudges. It would be nice to just flip the table but it just makes a new mess. We need to look into ourselves to search for the Spirit center and allow it to help clear the table.
As we move through lent let us take time to look at the table. To search for the courage of Christ to overturn what is not right. To seek out what has been lost in our lives and set it back in place. As Jesus saw the temple as a holy place may we see our own lives as a holy place. To see the Spirit Center and know that we are not alone. Thanks Be to God
Prayers of the people
Slow me Down Slow me Down
Still my restless mind Still my restless mind
Quell my fears Quell my Fears
Quench my Thirsty soul Quench my thirsty Soul
Fill me with your love Fill me with your love
God of Truth God of Truth
God of love God of love
God of love you set a table of grace and forgiveness before us. The table is full of wisdoms. A table with dishes of encouragement example of how to be your people. Yet in our journey we begin to pile on the table broken dreams, petty upsets and arguments. Grudges we hold on to. We try to cover all of this we ambitions and promises to ourselves. We cover it with resolutions and plastered on happy faces. We accumulate, we try rearranging the table but still it continues to pile up. Inevitably what is on the table begins to fall off. Some of what is lost was good. Some of the good becomes buried. Beyond ourselves we watch the world around us and see that the caring the world longs for is buried under self serving ambitions. Send your Spirit upon the world so that those who lead and influence might have wisdom to clear away that which clutters the table so that your Spirit Center might be seen.
Our hearts ache for those that we are called to walk with. Those that we know. Those that struggle with illness, those that know that they will walk the shadowed valley. Those that carry the burden of the mind. Send your Spirit to guide, to heal to strengthen. Send that same Spirit upon us so that we may be that presence that reminds the that they are not alone.
God of love you set a table of grace and forgiveness before us. The table is full of wisdoms. We are thankful for those times we have been at the table and known your presence. We are thankful for how you have been a guide to our community of faith. We know your Spirit in this place and trust and believe that same Spirit will be with us now and in the times to come. Bless O God this place. We offer you the prayers of our hearts trusting and knowing in your time they shall be answered. We offer you the great prayer which binds us as one saying Our Father…
Offering
We give thee but thy own. The work of the Church continues and there are three ways you can continue to support that work. Consider using PAR, use the donate button on our Web Site or drop your gift at the Manse. Let us make our offering and give thanks.
Prayer : Loving God we thank you for the opportunity to develop generous hearts through the giving of these gifts and the gifts that many we have to offer. Nurture in us your life - giving word. Use our lives in your service . We pray in Jesus’ name amen
Commissioning and Blessing
Commissioning and Blessing
One: Where Christ walks
All we will follow
One Where Christ stumbles
All We will stop
One Where Christ cries
All We will listen
One Where Christ suffers
All we will hurt
One When Christ dies
All We will bow our heads in sorrow
One When Christ rises again in glory
All We will share his endless joy
One There is no other way
All Christ is the only way.
One: Now may the blessing of God travel with you, May the teachings of Christ Illuminate you path and may the guiding hand of the Holy Spirit lead you forward. All Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost. As it was in the beginning, it is now, and ever shall be world without end, Amen.
Yesterdaywe honour our heritage.
Todaywe know that we are not alone,that we live in God's world.
Tomorrowwith God,we will discoverthe undiscovered country.
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