Worship Preview 3.1.26 "Lent 2: Are We There Yet?"

Scriptures: Isaiah 55:1-9, Isaiah 25:6-9, Genesis 12:1-10, and Matthew 9:1-12.  Rev. Christopher Eshelman preaching.

The Bible is filled with stories of invitation and promise. Sometimes the stories are rich and detailed. Sometimes they are quite sparse. Most people know about the call of Abraham, for example. “Go… to the land that I will show you.” And he goes!  One of my favorite insights is by author Bruce Feiler, who writes in his book “Abraham: Journey to the Center of Three Faiths” that Abraham doesn’t merely believe in God. He believes God – and so he responds.

God isn’t an abstract concept; God becomes the guiding force. Abram believes in the promise even before it is spelled out. He gives his heart to it. Abram goes… from stability - “from your country and your kindred and your father’s house…” into an uncertain journey. They move into the wilderness, just as we saw Jesus do last week. Although in this case it’s not Abram alone. He takes his wife Sarai, and his brother’s son Lot, and their entire households – servants, animals. It’s a caravan. And Sunday we’ll read more than just the familiar beginning – we’ll see Abram and the caravan go to Cannan, and then to Bethel – in both places they will set an altar. We have talked recently about being aware of God’s presence, of building altars – and being altered. And then just a verse later, there is a famine in the land and so this extended household is uprooted again, going to Egypt as refugees. How do we see and encounter ourselves in the story?

How do we see and encounter others? How do we see and encounter God? As the sermon title highlights – we often want to jump to the ending, to avoid the long uncertainty of the journey. We want simple answers instead of discernment and growth, but the Bible calls us to wilderness – to Lent – as well as to promise, often illustrated with a banquet table. As we begin Sunday, I’ll read from Isaiah 55, an invitation to salvation using a great banquet as the metaphor. Sunday is the first Sunday in March and so, following our tradition, we will celebrate Holy Communion together. United Methodists hold that the table is open to all. You don’t have to be a Methodist or a member of our congregation to come and receive the bread and cup because it is Christ who invites you. If you hear that call and wish to respond, you are welcome here.  And our Call to Worship will come from Isaiah 25 which tells us “On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines, of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines” then goes on to promise that death itself will be overcome!

We journey through Lent. We are preparing for that promise to be fulfilled in the empty tomb on Easter morning. We believe Jesus reveals the fullness of God and the potential of humanity. We are called to be like Christ! Jesus sees and encounters others with both compassion and challenge. Compassion for those scapegoated, oppressed, and excluded. Challenge for those who use their position to do so – even when a narrow reading of the law says the former are sinning and the religious elites are correct. Our reading from Matthew moves almost as quickly as the one from Genesis. In just a few verses Jesus goes from healing a man based on this friend’s demonstration of faith (and because his initial words of forgiveness were judged,) to calling a despised tax collector (Matthew) and dining with him and his friends. The famine here is not of food, but of mercy and justice. Just as God called Abraham to “go” and he responds, Jesus calls Matthew to “follow me” and Matthew does!

Neither Abraham nor Matthew are instantly perfect. The very next verse in Genesis, which we won’t read, Abram is engaged in a deception that puts Sarah in danger while protecting himself. But as we’ll hear Jesus say in Matthew ““It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

How do we see ourselves in the story? Are we willing to see ourselves as ones in need of repentance? To recognize where and when our path has diverged from following Christ? To turn around? To follow? I often say one of the things I most appreciate about the Bible is how its heroes are so often deeply flawed and that it tells those stories! And yet it does so to bring us to wholeness, not shame. Author Eli Johnson puts it this way: “Repentance is not to remind me to try harder and be better, repentance is about about letting go of my need to be in control and getting it right. Rather than an opportunity to feel guilt and shame, repentance is about admitting that I can’t do it myself, I never could. It is about acknowledging I am not able to be perfect. That I cannot control my life and make it all work out. Repentance is not about beating myself up; clenching tight my fists promising to do better next time, washed in feeling of shame and humiliation. Repentance is relief. Repentance is giving up self-salvation projects. It is knowing I don’t have to be teeth-clenched, fist-closed about my life. I don’t need to forcibly hold it all together because I have to keep the boat afloat, the show on the road. Repentance is recognizing that I don’t have to because I have someone who won all that I was never going to be able to attain: righteousness, salvation and forgiveness, on my behalf. Repentance is about relaxing, letting go. It is about taking myself back out of the driver’s seat and trusting. It is about unravelling and unfurling.”

The table is open. You are invited! Wherever you are on the journey, you are invited to bring your hopes, your fears, your doubts, and your full self to worship Sunday at 10:30am. Let us walk in the way of Christ! Amen!

UPCOMING EVENT: FEEDING FAMILIES IN HIS NAME: Wednesday, March 4 - A free, no obligation meal is served “to-go” style from underneath our portico from 5:15 to 6:15pm each Wednesday (note our new official start and end times), prepared each week by our members as well as several area churches and community groups. We aim to provide 400 meals per week.

FELLOWSHIP LUNCH POTATO BAR: 11:30am Friday, March 27^th. Our last fellowship lunch for this winter will be hosted by United Women in Faith and they will offer a potato bar for a freewill offering to benefit their mission and ministries. Mark your calendar and bring a friend!