Forgive Us Our Trespasses As We Forgive Those Who Have Trespassed Against Us

 Eastern Parkway United Methodist Church

 

 

 

  

A warm welcome to each worshiper today. We celebrate you and offer you our friendship and love. We are a congregation of people who seek to grow spiritually, to become more like Christ in His compassion and acceptance of everyone while growing more aware of what it really means to be Christians today.

As a Reconciling Congregation, EPUMC affirms the sacred worth of persons of all sexual orientations and gender identities and welcomes them into full participation in the fellowship, membership, ministries, and leadership of the congregation.

 

 

 

943 Palmer Avenue, Schenectady, NY 12309 / 518-374-4306 epumc943@gmail.com / www.easternparkway.com

Order of Worship

April 3, 2022

Fifth Sunday in Lent

10:00 a.m.

*You are invited to rise in body or spirit.

 

Prelude Prelude Johann Sebastian Bach

Greeting and Announcements

Mission Statement:

We are a faith community striving to be, to nurture, and to send forth disciples of Jesus Christ.

 

Call to Worship: By Nancy Townley

Break open our hearts this morning to hear your word, O God.

Let our fears be vanquished, our spirits restored!

Come and let us worship with great joy!

Let us drop the things of the past which weighed us down!

God is about to do something new in our lives!

Let God’s will become strong in our lives. AMEN.

 

*Hymn Sing Praise to God Who Reigns Above #126, v 1, 3, 4              

Prayer of Confession:

Patient Lord, we find it easy to blame others and other circumstances for the things which happen in our lives. We hear the words “if only” and wonder why things didn’t happen differently for us. Too often we want you to be a “magic” presence which will, with the wave of a wand, cure our ills, give us success and happiness; but we don’t necessarily want to take responsibility for our attitudes and actions. Life is. Things happen which we didn’t plan for and events swirl around us over which we have no control. But to place blame and not to find ways in which we can work through the situations is detrimental to everyone, especially ourselves. Forgive us when we are so busy placing blame that we don’t recognize your presence and love for us. Free us from placing our own desires first and foremost. Help us to look at the many ways in which you are working in the world for peace and justice, and enable us to be part of that ministry. In Jesus’ name, we pray. AMEN.

 

Assurance:

Let go of your fears. God has forgiven you and offered to you God’s healing love. Accept this free gift, for it is given for you through Jesus Christ our Lord. AMEN. 

Anthem Only When It’s Dark Jake Alexander

Scripture Reading John 12: 1-8

Mary Anoints Jesus

12 Six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. 2 There they gave a dinner for him. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those at the table with him. 3 Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus’ feet, and wiped them[a] with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. 4 But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was about to betray him), said, 5 “Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii[b] and the money given to the poor?” 6 (He said this not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief; he kept the common purse and used to steal what was put into it.) 7 Jesus said, “Leave her alone. She bought it[c] so that she might keep it for the day of my burial. 8 You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.”

 

Sermon Forgive Us Our Trespasses,

as We Forgive Those Who Have Trespassed Against Us

Good morning, friends. Here we are now, at week 5 of this special Lenten sermon series about these beloved, historical words that we call “The Lord’s Prayer.” We’re getting close to the end now, and we’ll bring it home by Easter.

This week, we’re covering this wonderful verse that Christians cannot universally agree on how to word:

“Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who have trespassed against us.”

While many Protestants, and our Roman Catholic friends, go with “trespasses”, our Presbyterian friends say “debts”, and as much as this might anger a room full of United Methodists to hear–our Presbyterian friends have a good reason for that, and we’ll get to that in a minute. This difference can cause some significant issues in ecumenical circles. In the group I worshiped with in college, which was comprised of students from several different Protestant denominations, we tried several different compromises. First, our chaplain would just stop talking at this line, and let us say what we felt called to. That sounds good in theory, but in practice was pretty awkward. I mean, imagine if we were saying the Lord’s Prayer together and ⅔ of the way through I just stopped talking? Are y’all supposed to keep going? That didn’t work. Then we tried trading off, one week “debts”, one week “trespasses”, but the inconsistency bugged everyone. Lastly, we came to the same compromise that a lot of churches these days use, partly to keep the peace, but also for reasons of theology and biblical interpretation: “forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who have sinned against us.” All of these might feel like very minor differences that don’t change the overall meaning of what we’re saying. But when I start the Lord’s Prayer the way I do I’m super aware of how much we all notice when you change even one word of something that we have so profoundly memorized. Whether you say “debts”, “trespasses”, or “sins” might not matter at all in the larger sense, but it’s a testament to the depth of our relationship with this prayer that nonetheless we care what we say. There’s something very sacred about the words that you have stamped on your brain, because you stamped God there right beside them.

Now, any word you put in this line will carry its own meaning for you, and ultimately what I will always come back to is that you should say what feels right for your relationship with God. In defense of our Presbyterian friends, “debts” is the best translation of Matthew’s account of the Lord’s Prayer. The specific word that we see in the Greek manuscripts is opheilemata, which best translates to “something you owe”. It was a concept that Jesus’ disciples understood without another word. In their agrarian society, land and crops were money. If you were a “tenant farmer”, which most of Jesus’ audience were, you would owe a share of your annual harvest to the landlord. If you had an unlucky year you might not grow enough to pay what you owe, let alone feed your family, and your debt would carry over to the next year. After a few years of this, your debt could become impossible to pay, and your landlord had the option of enslaving you and your family, or throwing you in debtors’ prison until you paid them back (which was darn near impossible, because how are you supposed to work for that money if you’re in jail?). The only way out would be a process that was legally called “redemption”--a wealthy, merciful person paid the debt for you. That person would be called your “redeemer”. What Jesus teaches us in praying these words is that God redeems us, frees us from a debtors’ prison we would never have left. And since I assume no one in this room is a tenant farmer, let’s put this in words that mean something to us: God wipes out your student loans. God pays off your mortgage. God gets rid of your credit card debt. God pays off your medical bills. God eliminates your back taxes. Can you imagine the weight that would lift from your shoulders if you didn’t have to worry about repaying any of those lenders anymore? Statistically, given the picture of debt in America, most of us would be so much freer to enjoy life, and then contribute to society, if those loans were paid in full by our Redeemer. 

But, this redemption comes on one condition: you have to let everyone who owes you anything off the hook, too. Jesus drives this point home by making up a parable in Matthew 18: 21-35 about a king who forgives a servant who owes him a bazillion dollars, but rescinds that forgiveness when that servant won’t forgive his friend the five bucks he borrowed. Put in that light, God’s forgiveness can sound like an awfully harsh concept. But what this really comes down to is how forgiveness works in the first place.

The word Luke uses in the same place isn’t “debt”, but “sins”–hamartia in the Greek. Hamartia means “missing the mark”, like when you’re bowling and you get a gutter ball. You tried, you aimed, you stood back, you imagined hitting that center pin, but now you have a zero on your scoreboard and your bowling league is laughing at you. We don’t get better at hitting the mark in anything–in bowling or in life–by just focusing on ourselves. We learn how to get there by helping one another. If we insisted on holding everyone else’s wrongs against them, none of us would ever grow.

This brings us to today’s Gospel reading. We’re inching closer and closer to holy week and now our friend Judas, who had been a minor character, is showing more and more of his hand. Jesus and his disciples are back in the home of Jesus’ dear friends Mary, Martha, and Lazarus, people who you know he loves dearly based on the number of stories we have about them. Jesus moved so quickly from one place to the next that he couldn’t be bothered to get a roof over his head, let alone to visit the same person twice. But we have three different stories about these quirky siblings, and we know that in their midst Jesus has taught, corrected, raised a dead body, and wept. This is a home where Jesus’ love is overflowing.’

Mary prepares a special treat for her dear friend Jesus, by anointing his feet with the most expensive oil she could get her hands on. In a previous story, her sister Martha lashed out because Mary acts on her feelings and instincts without considering pragmatic issues, like how the chores will all get done. But now, it’s not Martha who has any issue with this, it’s Judas, who growls that dumping Chanel no. 5 on Jesus feet is a dumb thing to do when people are starving. Though Judas may think he has the power to control the narrative, the parentheses sneak in the truth surely not lost on Jesus–Judas would pocket money from the disciples’ purse to put toward the “Judas goes to Vegas” fund. Jesus, in his exceptional love, defends Mary without outing Judas. Mary is getting Jesus ready for what comes very soon. There will always be poor people to feed, but Jesus’ clock is ticking. Unfortunately, the disciples don’t get it. Will we?

Jesus does something for Judas that most of us can’t imagine doing for anyone else–he extends him grace and mercy even though he knows that Judas is getting ready to sell him out. He forgives him, understanding that pain is a natural part of life, especially his life. And he forgives Judas hoping he could grow from a clean slate more than he could with a debt weighing him down. Tragically, Jesus’ radical forgiveness doesn’t help Judas, who doesn’t live long enough to do anything with that clean slate. But it helps Peter, who gets to move on from abandoning his friend on the cross to become the rock upon which Jesus builds the Church. It helps Paul, who gets to move on from persecuting Christians to building congregations. It helps me. I’m sure it helps you, if you use it.

We say “trespasses”, a word that originates from the Tyndale translation of the New Testament. It’s one that carries deep meaning for me, because it speaks to boundaries. A person may have crossed yours and done tremendous harm. You may have crossed a friend’s, and hurt them. We learn how to stop that cycle of pain by lifting one another up through forgiveness. We teach one another respect and compassion, and we start receiving it in turn. And God restores what we cannot on our own.

Of course, all that said, letting go of those debts, those trespasses, those sins, is by no means an easy process. Jesus teaches us as much. Right before going into the parable about the rich king who forgave his servant, Peter asks Jesus “How many times do we have to forgive someone? Seven times?” He hopes to get a gold star from Jesus for that answer, but instead Jesus responds, “not seven times, but seven times seventy times.” We forgive one another not in one big act, but in many small ones, especially when we’re talking about the really heavy debts. You forgive every time the name of someone who hurt you crosses your mind and, instead of imagining punching them in your mind, you try to let it go for a moment. We have to do this every time we remember our wounds, over and over and over and over. Was it seven times? Was it seventy seven times? Was it seven times seventy times? Who knows, we lost count.

But where we lift one another’s prison sentences, Jesus shows up with keys, opens doors, and lets us out. And the prisoner he frees when you forgive is you.

By God’s help, may we forgive those trespasses just as God forgives ours. 

Amen.

*Hymn To Know You More #2161

Offering

Offertory Allemande French Suite in E Johann Sebastian Bach

*Doxology #95

*Prayer of dedication           

 

Pastoral Prayer and Lord’s Prayer

Lord God, how extravagant your love for us is! You continually pour upon us blessing upon blessing - in the lives of people near and dear to us, in the beauty of creation, in the skills and abilities you have given to us. There is so much for which we are thankful. Yet in the midst of this thankfulness, there lurks the demons of demand and confusion. We want you to be in control of taking care of all the things that threaten us. We want you to prevent us from facing times of confusion and doubt. Actually, we want to have a more complete faith. Like Judas, who misunderstood Jesus’ intention, we wonder about the anointing of Jesus - about the perceived waste of materials. How hard it is for us to see that we need to take some time to honor and praise Christ instead of continually asking for Christ to do things for us. We have a lot to learn. Lord, teach us! Open our hard hearts to the healing words you have for us. Give us patience and persistence in our service to you. And when we stumble and thrash around faithlessly, bring us back to your presence; that we may find healing and hope. In Jesus’ name, we pray. AMEN.

Our Father, Mother, Creator God, who 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 trespasses as we forgive those who have trespassed against us. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the Kingdom, and the Power, and the Glory forever. Amen.

The Lord’s Supper

The Lord be with you. 

And also with you. 

Lift up your hearts. 

We lift them up to the Lord. 

Let us give thanks to the Lord our God. 

It is right to give our thanks and praise. 

It is right, and a good and joyful thing, always and everywhere to give thanks to you, Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth. From the dust of the earth you formed us into your image and breathed into us the breath of life. When we turned away and our love failed, your love remained steadfast. 

And so, with your people on earth and all the company of heaven, we praise your name and join their unending hymn: 

Holy, holy, holy Lord, God of power and might, heaven and earth are full of your glory. Hosanna in the highest. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest. 

Holy are you, and blessed is your Son Jesus Christ. Your Spirit anointed him to preach good news to the poor, to proclaim release to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, and to announce that the time had come when you would save your people. He healed the sick, fed the hungry, and ate with sinners. 

On the night in which he gave himself up for us, our Lord Jesus took bread, gave thanks to you, broke the bread gave it to his disciples, and said: “Take, eat; this is my body which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” When the supper was over, he took the cup, gave thanks to you, gave the cup to his disciples, and said: “Drink from this, all of you; this is my blood of the new covenant, poured out for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” 

And so, in remembrance of these your mighty acts in Jesus Christ, we offer ourselves in praise and thanksgiving as a holy and living sacrifice, in union with Christ's offering for us, as we proclaim the mystery of faith: 

Christ has died; Christ is risen; Christ will come again. 

Pour out your Holy Spirit on us gathered here, and on these gifts of bread and wine. Make them be for us the body and blood of Christ, that we may be for the world the body of Christ, redeemed by his blood. By your Spirit make us one with Christ, one with each other, and one in ministry to all the world, until Christ comes in final victory and we feast at his heavenly banquet. By Christ, and with Christ, and in Christ, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, all glory and honor is yours, Almighty God, now and forever. Amen!

*Hymn More Love to Thee, O Christ #453         

Benediction

Congregational Response UMH 672, v. 1

Postlude Open Our Eyes Trad. Irish Melody, arr. by Mark Hayes

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Staff

Natalie Bowerman Pastor

Betsy Lehmann Music Director

Joe White Custodian

Cassandra Brown Nursery Attendant