1^st Sunday in June (Week 23) Israel’s Covenant (Exodus 3:1-17; Luke 9:28-50; Exodus 1:1 – 4:17)

Overview

The very idea of a “personal mission” is a scary thing: to think that God would single out me to do what? We like to think God would only choose somebody really, really special to call into mission, but the Biblical witness is that God chooses very ordinary and even unusual people. God chooses people who don’t deserve it. God chooses people at the edge, the fringe, and the questionable sectors of society. God is more apt to choose people without talent than people with talent. In short, God is more likely to choose me or you, rather than some very talents, capable, competent, charismatic kind of person. Why? Because God always makes it clear that the blessing comes from God and not from humans. God uses you. You are but a vehicle, a tool, or a representative of His power. “Who? Me?”

Team Meditation

Luke 9:49-50  ⁴⁹ John answered, "Master, we saw a man casting out demons in your name, and we forbade him, because he does not follow with us."  ⁵⁰ But Jesus said to him, "Do not forbid him; for he that is not against you is for you."

Christians always seem to worry about the competition. It is hard to accept that grace (healing, comfort, reconciliation, righteous action, profound mentoring, etc. etc.) might come from somebody else other than us. Those “other people” are always weird: politically incorrect, doctrinally suspect, behaviorally different, or culturally odd. Surely God would not use “weird” people as a vehicle for grace! Yet that is exactly what God does, over and again. It’s time to stop comparing and competing. If it’s a good thing, God must be in it. Praise the Lord!

Worship Theme

Moses didn’t want to be a leader. The theme of the “reluctant leader” is one of the most common in the Bible. Nobody ever “wants” to be the chosen one of God. Jesus did … but even he tried to evade the responsibility when the cross loomed large. The same was true of Moses. He didn’t really want the job. He had many quite legitimate excuses. He was not assertive; he was a criminal; he was not very articulate; he was not particularly brave; he was certainly not very charismatic; his personality was hard to get along with; he had not particular expertise about desert wanderings, military deployment, or sensitivity to other cultures. At best, Moses was a self-righteous and rather confused teenager.

Yet God chose him. God spoke to him. God changed him. Moses did not discern gifts that lay hidden in his personality. He received gifts that transformed his personality. The fire from the burning bush refined him, transformed him, changed him, burned him, and guided him. It is doubtful that Moses ever really agreed to be a leader. God chose him despite his disagreement. Jonathan Edwards, the puritan who influenced the growth of the church in the New World, said it well: It really is a fearsome thing to fall into the hands of the living God! Guess what? There is a burning bush in your peripheral vision. Do you dare to step aside and look?

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2^nd Sunday in June (Week 24) Israel’s Covenant (Exodus 12:1-39; Mathew 14:1-33; Exodus 4:18-6:13 and 6:28-14:31)

Overview

The Old Testament paints a very black and white picture about the human condition in relation to God’s power. What happens when God passes by? Some live, and some die. That’s it. Yet it is not quite a matter of fate … the flip of a coin or the luck of the draw. The one’s that live have surrendered to God; the one’s that die have hardened their hearts and trusted in their own powers. This is the harsh criteria of Biblical faithfulness. Surrender to God and live; trust in human pride (human rationality, human efficiency, human innovation, human affluence) and die. It’s really very simple.

Team Meditation

When the Lord passes by, some people live and some people die. What is confusing is that the ones who die may not necessarily deserve it. John the Baptist was as upright and righteous as any could imagine. Yet it was time for him to die. Herod did not decide he should die. The lovely Herodias did not decide he should die. God decided it was time he should die. If God had not willed it, nothing Herod or Herodias could have done would have accomplished it. It was all God’s will, from start to finish. John’s death started a chain of events that led to Jesus’ death and resurrection. It was all God’s plan.

And this leads us to reflect on the following: what is God’s plan for me? For you? Our life and our death is in God’s hands. Our life and out death will serve the purpose to advance God’s salvation history. It will contribute to God’s mission to redeem the world. Our value does not lie in living or dying, but only as it serves the Lord.

Worship Theme

The Passover is one of the most significant events in history … not just Jewish history. Our history. God demonstrated his omnipotence over life and death. God is in control. God chooses who will live and who will die.

We can react to this power in a variety of ways. One way to react is to bless God that He spared our children. The other is to curse God that he did not spare our children. The children who live and the children who die are both innocent. They do not “deserve” to live or to die. It is God’s choice, and God’s choosing does not frankly seem particularly rational. It seems to have nothing to do with what our children deserve, but with how we have behaved. The parents are held accountable.

Even then, life and death may seem arbitrary. John the Baptist was a good man, yet he died. A parent may be a good parent, yet the child dies. Good things happen to bad people; and bad things can happen to good people. Behind it all is the mysterious purpose of God. In the end, all we can cling to is that God’s plan for the redemption of the world is unfolding, and if we surrender to it we (and our children) will be ultimately blessed. Cling to God … even when life seems crazy. That is the message of Passover.

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3^rd Sunday in June (Week 25) Israel’s Covenant (Numbers 20: 1-13; John 4:7-42; Numbers 11:1-14:25; 17; 20; 22; 27:12-23)

Overview

When you are lost, guidance comes from unlikely sources. This week I was driving at night through the bayous of southern Louisiana … in the post-Katrina world of damaged infrastructures and lost road signs. I stopped at a gas station to ask directions, and a host of Cajun accents tried to inexplicably explain where I was and where I should go. I left still unclear about my right and left turns, but generally encouraged that is was going in the right direction, that if I stayed away from alligators I would be all right, and if I really got lost some sympathetic person would set me straight. I wonder: What else can we ask for in life?

Team Meditation

Jesus’ conversation with the Samaritan woman is a paradigm of every conversation with seekers today. It happens at the well … the food court, the restaurant, or the coffee house … with outcasts … who are worried about healthy relationships … and searching for God. Please do not kid yourself. Seekers are rarely helped by even the most “seeker sensitive” worship service. They are helped during the post-worship refreshment time, when a spiritually mature Christian engages them in conversation over coffee, and allows them to ask the deepest questions that beset their troubled lives. The mentoring moment rarely happens in worship. It almost never happens during a sermon. Worship might set the stage of expectation … but the Kairos moment comes over coffee when some poor seeker asks a question of some amateur church member about the meaning of life. The clergy are rarely in the picture … they are too busy shaking hands with the members at the door. So it’s all up to you … the amateur layperson who thinks they know very little. You are in the shoes of Jesus, and the Samaritan woman is asking you the key question of their lives. What will you say?

Worship Theme

God loves comedy. God loves farce. The very idea of God’s will being revealed, not by a priest, nor even by Balaam, but by Balaam’s ass is one of the most amusing and profound stories of the Bible. It’s not that God speaks through ordinary things, but that God even speaks through profane things. It boggles the mind, turns the heart upside down, and disturbs every politically correct church member whether liberal or conservative. God speaks through donkey. Yikes!

What exactly did Balaam’s ass say? Only that Balaam had better forsake his pride, and open his eyes, and see that an angel was before him. The lowliest of creatures are most apt to see the fullness of God … and if they could but communicate to us, our eyes might be opened to see angels in our midst. Fortunately, Balaam had the humility to listen to his donkey. Do we?

Worship Design

Prepare for the service by getting a copy of Time and Newsweek, and People magazines, the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and your local newspaper, and The Inquirer. Begin by asking the congregation which ones they turn to for trusted information (use the TV Guide as a metaphor for the television—you may want to choose particular programs from the listings for examples). For each source, get the participants to discuss why they do or don’t trust the source. Then show a clip from the movie With Honors (1994), the story of a squatter who lives in a Harvard University’s furnace room. Use the scene where Simon Wilder (Joe Pesci) confronts Professor Pitkannan (Gore Vidal) in a class about the Constitution. In the clip, Pitkannan belittles Wilder for his lack of education and is clearly “unimpressed” by Wilder’s comments, astute as they are. The point of the opening exercise and the clip is to introduce the way in which we filter our “facts.” This will take you into the weekly worship theme.

Bill T-B

Small Group Discussion

Numbers 11:1-14:25; 17; 20; 22; 27:12-23

How do you recognize God’s provision? For all practical purposes, the wandering Israelites were recipients of a Divine Welfare Program. God provided for their basic needs from food and drink to never wear-out sandals. As you read this week’s scripture passages, look to see how God provides for the Israelites. Then, when you gather with your small group, discuss how the Israelites responded to that provision—and how you and yours respond to God’s provisions in your lives.

Bill T-B

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4th Sunday in June (Week 26) Israel’s Covenant (Deuteronomy 10:12-22 and 11:18-21; Romans 7:4-25; Exodus 15, 20, 32, 34; Deuteronomy 10:10 – 11:32)

Overview

Addiction is the number 1 health issue in the world today. We are held in slavery to self destructive habits that we chronically deny, yet which rob life of purpose and meaning. That is why twelve step programs of all kinds are the fastest growing spiritual movement in the world today … surpassing every religion. It is exactly what the Old Testament describes as idolatry, and the New Testament describes as sin. Only the intervention of a Higher Power can liberate us … release us from the shackles of hell, and open the possibility of abundant life.

Team Meditation

Romans 7:19-25   ¹⁹ For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.  ²⁰ Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin which dwells within me.  ²¹ So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand.  ²² For I delight in the law of God, in my inmost self,  ²³ but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin which dwells in my members.  ²⁴ Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?  ²⁵ Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!

The truth is that most Christian leaders believe, deep in the hearts, that they deserve salvation. Even if they were lost to sin, and save by amazing grace, within a few years they fall prey to the sin of pride and believe that they deserve salvation. Pride … sin … is the most insidious of evils. Even the best people fall prey to its enticements. Sometimes we realize our enslavement, and despair, because we have led the most godly of lives and are applauded by others as veritable saints. Yet in our hearts we know. We deserve death. We deserve punishment. Nobody knows the evil we have don, in spite of ourselves, but we know it. We despair of it. Only God’s grace will save us.

Worship Theme

The Ten Commandments are absolutely reasonable. They make perfect sense … to the sociologist, the anthropologist, the politician, and the social scientist. If only we would stop worshipping sacred cows, killing each other, stealing each other’s intimacy … if only we would honor our ancestors, refrain from theft and covetousness, and behave with respect to all … the world would be a veritable garden of Eden. The problem is that we can’t do it. It’s not just that we can’t choose it. We can’t do it even if we choose it. There is something innately evil at the heart of humankind that keeps us from fulfilling even the clearest and simplest of commandments. That’s why we need divine intervention. That’s why we need Christ.

Worship Design

Consider opening the service with a conversation with one of your most good-sported participants (you may or may not want to give them a head’s up about what will transpire—there’s something about the shock of it all to the unsuspecting). Tell them you’re going to help them understand what kind of person they really are by looking at the ten commandments. Use the following directions, but tease out the conversation (and keep the conversation light and as jovial as possible—the point isn’t to discredit anyone). Using a white board (chalk board, etc.), begin by asking whether they ever disobeyed their parents. When they admit that they have, and they will if you press it, write “disrespectful” on the board. Then ask them if they’ve ever told a lie...white lie, dark lie, any kind of lie. When they admit it, write “lying” beneath disrespectful. Then ask if they’ve ever had a lustful thought. When they admit it, remind them that Jesus said that anyone who’s lusted is guilty of adultery—then write “adulterous” beneath the list. Finally, ask if they’ve ever stolen anything in their life (even if it’s coming in late for work and not counting the time against themselves or taking a “forbidden” cookie from the home cookie jar). When they admit it write “thief” beneath the list. Then ask them if this list pretty much sums up their life—they’re a disrespectful, lying, adulterous, thief. And remind the crowd that we’re all in that category!

Then open this service by showing a clip from Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan (1982). Use the scene when Khan (Ricardo Montalban) takes over Terrell and Chekov by putting ceti eels into their ears( Walter Koenig and Paul Winfield, respectively). Run the scene from the starship’s exploration of the “deserted” planet until they start babbling to Khan, revealing Kirk’s location. Use this clip to launch a discussion of why we can’t behave like we’d like to (and it’s not because we have aliens in our heads, regardless of what Khan and L. Ron Hubbard would have us believe).

Bill T-B

Small Group Discussion

Exodus 15, 20, 32, 34; Deuteronomy 10:10 – 11:32

What’s the minimum we have to do to really be counted as a Christian? To find out, we spend much of our Christian life in study trying to “understand” what it takes to live a Christian life. However, many of us spend most of that time studying rather than doing with the excuse that we don’t really know “how” to be good Christians and we want to get it right. Apparently, the Israelites had the same problem. God gave them ten commandments, but then they needed more...and more...and more. Each new commandment they got only built on one of the original ten. These commandment explained the commandments. This week, as you read through the scriptures and see how the Israelites responded to the law, consider what your response is to the “laws” of being a Christian. Then, in your small group discussion, talk about what the “rules” of being a faithful Christian really are and the expectations that go along with them.

Bill T-B