© BF-WATCH TV 2021
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© BF-WATCH TV 2021
© BF-WATCH TV 2021
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me. He said to me, mortal, I am sending you to the people of Israel, to a nation of rebels who
have rebelled against me. They and their ancestors have transgressed against me this very day.
The descendants are impudent and stubborn. I am sending you to them,
and you shall say to them, thus said the Lord God, whether they hear or refuse to hear, for
they are rebellious house. They shall know that there has been a prophet among them.
Father John gave on and on and vicious known. This isn't love, it's rest and free.
My soul has often found relief, and on this day the devil's share, by life he turns me out of prayer.
Dear friends, let us gather in prayer. We come before you, gracious God, at a time when there's
so much going on in our world. We can write things down and talk about them. We really need to ask
you to feel all these events with us and help us get through them. We're praying in the city of
Indianapolis right now, where it is very, very hot and dry. But we aren't in desperate situations,
like so many people throughout the world. There are places where there's too much rain,
and there are places where there are fires destroying forests and homes. Please be with all
the people who are encountering extreme weather and circumstances that are making it very hard for
them to live. We also address the problems of violence throughout the world and in different
cities where people are on the streets not knowing what to do. We pray for those who are victims of
terrorism, victims of bullying, victims of all kinds of misbehavior that we're capable of doing
and hurting each other. We pray for those who are undergoing elections at this time,
those who perhaps have never voted in a democratic election before. We pray for all the countries
who experience such terrible conditions but are now in the midst of nation building. We pray for
those who are traveling, where for many of us it's summer and for many of us it's winter. We pray
for those who are desperate for food and desperate for shelter. We pray for all those who are
seeking employment of any kind to sustain them, to sustain their families. And we pray for the
agencies who do such a heroic job of serving the people who are in need. Be with those people,
O God, and help them to continue to have hope. And we pray for everybody who has personal issues.
Many of us have people in our families who are ill. Many have people who have passed on
and several of us are grieving for them. We pray for those who are ill. We pray also for those
close to death. Please be with them and sustain them. We pray for families. We pray for children.
We pray for decency and love. We pray that the love that Jesus called for could become a reality
in our world, a world that would not have strangers because of the accident of birth,
the accident of what religion they were born into. May we all be one as we pray in the words that Jesus
taught us to pray. Our Father, through art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come,
thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us
our debts, as we forgive our debts, and leave us alive in temptation, but deliver us from evil,
for by his kingdom, and in power, and in glory for ever. Amen.
Mark chapter 6 verses 1 through 6. He left that place and he came to his hometown,
and his disciples followed him. On the Sabbath he began to teach in the synagogue,
and many who heard him were astounded. They said, where did this man get all this?
What is this wisdom that has been given to him? What deeds of power are done by his hands?
Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James and Joseph and Judas and Simon,
and are not his sisters here with us? And they took offense at him. Then Jesus said to them,
prophets are not without honor, except in their hometown, and among their own kin,
and in their own house. And he could do no deed of power there, except that he laid hands on a
few sick people and cured them. And he was amazed at their disbelief.
If you have never had the experience of being rejected by your own family and friends,
if you have never had your family and friends who care about you and love you,
refuse to listen and take you seriously, when you wanted to say something that you
thought was really important, the sermon today is not for you, and you don't have to listen. There
are two stories in Scripture today about the prophet Ezekiel and about Jesus Christ not being
accepted and people not listening to them. The priest, the prophet Ezekiel, in the sixth century
BC, when the people of Judah had been defeated by Babylon in battle, people had been exiled into
captivity in Babylon. It was Ezekiel who was the priest of the community. And he dealt with people
trying to give them hope in a time when they had no hope. He dealt with people who were depressed,
who were defeated, who frankly did not want to be receptive to the message that he brought.
When God spoke to Ezekiel, he called the people a rebellious people, he called them impudent,
he called them stubborn. God says to Ezekiel, stay true to my word, stay true to my message,
whether they listen or not, stay true to my message, they will know that a prophet has been
among them. The message seemed to be to Ezekiel that his success was based upon his faithfulness
to God's word. His success was not based on how well people listened to him, how many of them
changed their minds. Essentially, God judges the people do not. The Reverend Dr. Barbara Brown Taylor,
a religious author and professor of preaching, an Episcopal priest, I once heard her give a lecture
to preachers. And she talks about the experience that every preacher knows of being so excited
about the sermon that I have delivered this day and then realizing after church that nobody got it.
I can guarantee you that every preacher has also had the experience of laboring through a sermon
in Sunday morning worship, knowing perfectly well that I am laying out there a real dog
and it's embarrassing and shouldn't even be doing this this morning. And after that having
people come up to me and tell me that it has moved them more than anything in their memory,
how the word spoke to them today in a way that they never thought it could. And they describe
something that I did not think I ever said. Barbara Brown Taylor says that sometimes when the preacher
is at his or her best, all we really do is release God's word out into the room where God's people
are and let it do its own work. The point being that the word of God has life and power of its own.
And so Ezekiel was to judge, God said, based on how faithful he was to the message
and not how popular his message was. This is hard things for most preachers to hear.
We are tempted greatly to say what people want to hear. We want to hear those wonderful compliments
after the service on Sunday morning. Jesus had a very similar experience in the gospel reading
for today. Jesus is in his own city, his own community and he is not respected. Nobody believes
him. Nobody wants to listen in his own town among his own people. Perhaps they knew him too well.
I remember as a very young minister, only two or three years out of seminary, that my home church
in Louisville, Kentucky was between pastors and looking for a new minister. And my mother suggests
to me that I might be interested in being the minister at my own church. And I began to reflect
on just how silly that would be. I started to think about all the things that my third grade
Sunday school teacher knew about me. And I started to think about what it would mean
to stand in the pulpit in front of that particular group of people and try to claim pastoral authority.
It wasn't going to work. Jesus had that problem that day. He also had a problem that day of
class prejudice. Where does he get all of this, the people say? He is no prophet. He's a carpenter.
And is he not the carpenter? Is he not the brother of James and Joseph and his sisters
and so on? They knew him too well. And they also knew that he was not a well educated man.
And probably nobody had to listen to him. I have a marvelous quote and I can't tell you where it
came from about taking seriously somebody's wisdom no matter who they are. And the lines are these.
A society which tolerates mediocre philosophers simply because philosophy is an exalted profession
and which does not appreciate good plumbers simply because plumbing is a humble profession.
That society will fail. Neither its pipes nor its ideas will hold water.
Jesus is received with a response that says the people say where did he get all of this?
They weren't interested in hearing it from him. That is interesting. You notice in this passage
Mark doesn't even tell us what the content of the teaching was that day. He simply says that Jesus
taught and they were not interested in hearing. Where does he get all of this? That's a far cry
from what happened back in the end of chapter four when Jesus had calmed the storm. The disciples
in the boat that day did not say where did he get all of this. They said who then is this?
That the wind and the sea obey him. In chapter five of Mark Jesus has three
magnificently powerful healing miracles. Mark tells us who Jesus is by telling us
the story of his life. The things that he actually does with special emphasis on his
powerful miracles. Who then is this that the wind and the sea obey him? And yet the people who know
him say where did he get all of this? The truth of the Christ of God is spoken to those who do not
want to hear it very much. The church today faces a very similar situation, I believe.
You and I often we want to speak the word of truth, the word of God, to people around us,
to a world which does not want to hear it. What do we do? The temptation is to be popular.
The temptation is to be perhaps a little too much part of our own country or part of our own
community of people. The temptation is very much like the temptation I cited a moment ago for the
preacher who wants the compliments and wants to say what people want to hear. Sometimes the church
faces that same temptation. I believe that sometimes we have to choose. We have to remember
that Jesus spoke to people who did not want to hear and yet he spoke the truth anyway.
We have to remember that a prophet like Ezekiel spoke the word of God but the people did not
want to hear it and God's word was stay true to my message and stay true to my word and whether
they listen or not they will know that a prophet has been among them. So far I have spoken about
Jesus, the prophet Ezekiel, and the preacher who stands in front of a congregation leading worship.
But this time when I use the word preacher, I am talking about every single one of us.
Every one of us who ever has any reason to speak out loud what we believe God is telling us to say.
Every one of us who believes that we have reason to be true to the message that we have heard from
God. We are all preachers in that sense. And we are in fact called, sometimes uncomfortably called,
to bear witness to what we believe, to bear witness to what the word of God and the message of God
really is. And my prayer for us all today in this forum at Disciples Net, my prayer for all of us
everywhere, is that we may in fact have the courage to be true to the message that we are called to
speak. And if someone listens, praise God. If someone does not listen, let them at least know
that a prophet has been among them. Amen.
The name that charms our fears, that bids our sorrow cease.
Tears music in the sinner's ear, tears life and health and peace.
My loving Savior and my God, assist me to proclaim, to spread through all the earth abroad,
the honors of thy name. Glory to God and praise and love be ever, ever given. By saints below
and saints above the church in earth and heaven. Let us now come to the table. It was on the night
that Jesus was betrayed, that he gathered his disciples in the upper room and recounted the
days, the years, the months of the ministry that they had shared together. And in so doing,
he was preparing them for his imminent departure. And so he took bread and then he blessed it.
And then he broke it. And he gave it to them saying, this is my body, which is broken for you.
As often as you eat of it, you do so in remembrance of me. And likewise, the cup,
which you took and blessed and gave it to them saying, this is the new covenant of my blood,
which is shed for the remission of sins. And as often as you drink of it, you do so to show forth
my death and my suffering until I come again. Let us pray. Gracious God, we thank you for this
ministry of your son Jesus Christ. We ask that you bless the bread and the cup as it becomes part
of us and we spread it to the world. Just like we share your message to the world. Help us to be
faithful. In Christ's name we pray. Amen. Amen. You may eat. You may drink.
Let us pray.
Amen.
Gracious and mighty God, bless us now as we depart from this moment of worship.
As we cease being your congregation gathered together in worship, may we truly become
your people bearing witness to you in the world in which we live. Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
