GODISNOWHERE

 Eastern Parkway United Methodist Church 

 

A warm welcome to each worshipper 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.org 

 
 
 
 
 

Order of Worship 

June 26, 2022 

10:00 a.m. 

*You are invited to rise in body or spirit. 

  

Prelude  

 
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:  

God is a God who calls. We have gathered to worship and to hear that call. 

God is a God who equips. We are here to worship and to be shaped into the body of Christ. 

God is a God who sends. We are here to worship so that we can carry that spirit of worship out into the world where we live. 

God is a God who blesses. We are here to worship and to request a double share of that blessing. 

Let us worship God. Amen! 

Rev. Dr. Derek C. Weber, Discipleship Ministries, 2021 

  

*Hymn Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing #400        

        

Prayer of Confession: 

We struggle to manifest the fruits of the Spirit, 

but often find ourselves bound by works of the flesh. 

We know the whole law is summed up 

in the single commandment 

to love our neighbor as ourselves. 

Yet we create fences around ourselves to keep neighbors outside 

and tell ourselves we have no responsibility. 

Even in our own back yard we “bite and devour” one another. 

We wish it were different. 

When Jesus calls us to follow him, 

we find every excuse to instead go home 

or to the workplace to finish something more important first. 

Yet we yearn to be more centered on You. 

  

Assurance: 

Despite our resistance, 

we can be assured that God’s strong arm redeems the people. 

God calls us back to God’s realm, and encourages us 

with a love we can never lose no matter how hard we push back, 

no matter how often we forget, no matter how far we stray. 

We need but ask and we are forgiven. 

  

From Putting on the Mantle: Service Prayers for the 6th Sunday after Pentecost, written by The Rev. Catherine Rolling. Posted on the United Church of Christ’s Worship Ways website. http://www.ucc.org/worship/worship-ways/. Reposted: https://re-worship.blogspot.com/2013/06/prayer-of-confession-proper-8-c.html. 

 
 

Scripture Reading Luke 9: 51-62 

Samaritan Opposition 

51 As the time approached for him to be taken up to heaven, Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem. 52 And he sent messengers on ahead, who went into a Samaritan village to get things ready for him; 53 but the people there did not welcome him, because he was heading for Jerusalem. 54 When the disciples James and John saw this, they asked, “Lord, do you want us to call fire down from heaven to destroy them[a]?” 55 But Jesus turned and rebuked them. 56 Then he and his disciples went to another village. 

The Cost of Following Jesus 

57 As they were walking along the road, a man said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.” 

58 Jesus replied, “Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.” 

59 He said to another man, “Follow me.” 

But he replied, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.” 

60 Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” 

61 Still another said, “I will follow you, Lord; but first let me go back and say goodbye to my family.” 

62 Jesus replied, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.” 

 

Sermon GODISNOWHERE 

 

Friends, I invite you to join me in a short spiritual exercise. Grab a pen and a piece of paper. Write down the letters I’m about to tell you, in the order I say them. And don’t get ahead of me by putting spaces in there. 

GODISNOWHERE 

Read that back. 

Then read it again. 

What does that say? 

There are two possibilities. The one you saw first might tell you a little about your current spiritual state. 

It either says “God is nowhere,” or it says “God is now here.” 

Which one is right? It’s really a matter of perspective, isn’t it? We humans have proven so capable of shutting God out that if we cling to that first reading, then it may as well be true. But if we maintain hope that this is God’s world and that the Holy is always in our midst, then God is now here no matter where we are, physically or spiritually. 

This week I needed that reminder. And let me start by saying that I’m growing very weary of beginning my sermons with depressing news headlines. I wish there wouldn’t be multiple new ones every week. This week was especially rough. 

On Thursday, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of a plaintiff, the New York State Rifle and Pistol Association, and struck down requirements that a person needs a specific reason why they need a gun in order to conceal carry one in public. It’s an important ruling for those who have fought against gun control. I argue, it’s a very dangerous ruling. 

But that was just Thursday. On Friday morning, I woke up to the sound of my phone blowing up with angry and scared texts from my two sisters, Cassie and Gwen. The Supreme Court overturned Roe V Wade, ending federal protections of a pregnant person’s right to privacy and autonomy in their healthcare decisions, including the decision to terminate their pregnancy. That day was 49 years in the making. 

Before I say any more, let me clarify: I know gun and abortion laws are hotly controversial. I don’t expect you to agree with me. I have respected colleagues and beloved friends who rejoiced on both Thursday and Friday. If you have sought the answers to these difficult questions about life, self-defense, medical privacy, women’s rights, and personal choice in your own prayerful heart, and you earnestly came to the belief that a person’s right to bear arms is irrefutable and that abortion is immoral, I understand and respect your convictions. I really do. 

I think you know me well enough to know that I have much more to say than just that, and I do. But rather than diving straight into the deep end of the debate pool this morning, instead I’d like to direct your attention in a different direction, and that’s the angle of just how stinkin’ hard it’s been to live in this country. I’ve known both of these issues—gun control and abortion—to be fiercely controversial and intensely fought over, particularly in Christian circles, for most, if not all, of my life. Several years ago, at a gathering of the Upper New York Annual Conference, a petition was raised to make all of our churches gun-free zones. In my mind, that’s a common sense move, but the petition failed after a very long and emotional debate—what about police officers who walk off the street, attend worship, and go right back on the beat afterward? What about avid hunters? What about survivors of violent crime who felt safer armed? I still disagree with all of those arguments, and believe we’re all safer without weapons, but right now we’re fighting over something much bigger. 

We see guns as many things in this country—weapons, toys, sporting equipment, survival necessities, military gear—but more than possessions we may own, guns have become a matter of American identity, and American Christian identity. Gun ownership isn’t just about what we have, it’s about who we are. Are we descendants of the Founding Fathers who declared that a well-regulated militia would only be possible in a nation where people could own guns? Are we followers of the Christ, who told us to beat our swords into plough shares? Are we both, and yet struggling to be even more than the sum of those parts? If that sounded complicated, imagine living it! 

People like my parents may be inclined to think that Roe v Wade was settled in January of 1973. But I can tell you as a clergywoman that those who sought to get rid of Roe started their work the day after it passed. If you’re closer to my parents’ age, public debates about Roe, heartbeat bills, waiting periods, mail-order abortion pills, and shuttering clinics have dominated your adult years. If you’re like me, and you weren’t born yet in 1973, then you have never lived in an America that wasn’t at war over reproductive justice, and you have never been part of a Church unaffected by that fight. Wherever you happen to stand on that issue, it’s been a lot to carry. Are you tired? I understand. Imagine carrying it if it were your rights hanging in the balance. That’s tough in a way many of us in this room can only imagine. 

Before lashing out into harsh and unChristian rage in these exhausting days, remember that Jesus sent messengers to Samaria, the capital of the Northern Kingdom of Israel, while he was headed to Jerusalem, capital of the Southern Kingdom of Israel. The Samaritans would not talk to his messengers because of their loathing for the Southern Kingdom. If anyone understands the intense animosity that can build between two types of people who aren’t actually that far apart, it’s Jesus. And when his disciples offered to burn down Samaria, he politely declined (and, I assume, impolitely rolled his eyes and said bad words in his head). Before we wage war, let us try to see what we can achieve with peace. 

As Jesus ventures on toward Jerusalem in this morning’s scripture reading, he engages in several conversations in which he reminds would-be disciples that following him means hard work. His words have never felt more relevant to me than now. What he calls his would-be disciples on the most is their privilege. 

Has it been awful listening to these endless debates about abortion and guns? I can tell you, yes, it has been. But I’m a 35 year old white lady, living in a big house in a nice suburb, with an expensive education, a good job, and a very supportive husband. I’m shielded from most of life’s hardest questions. In every one of my pregnancies, I had all the support I needed to have a safe birth and to raise happy, healthy children. That will very likely continue to be true for me. My neighborhood isn’t being torn asunder by gun violence, and I’m not asking hard questions about how I would defend myself. It would be easy for me to surrender to apathy while my friends fought around me. I could brush off the conversations it’s so hard to engage in by repeating Sean’s favorite joke: you know what “politics” means, right? “Poly”=many, “ticks”=blood sucking insects. I could be like Pontius Pilate, ask “what is truth?” and wash my hands to all of it. Or, fitting with this morning’s reading, I could be someone who wants to do the hard work of following Jesus, but I don’t want to alienate my family by missing a funeral, or give up my surplus of crops by leaving my land. 

But Jesus reminds us, every time we are tempted to retreat into our privileged, safe spaces, that he volunteered to be homeless so that he’d be right next to the people who needed him, when they needed him. I can’t tell you what to think about these recent Supreme Court decisions, but I can tell you that if you’re struggling to make up your mind, Jesus would guide you away from your own interests and comforts, and toward protecting those around you who aren’t landowners with a big support network from the dominant racial and cultural group. In this country that means—listen to the women in your lives. The children. The GLBTQIA folx. The BIPOC folx. The poor. The housing and food insecure. Those with nowhere to lay their head at the end of the day. What do they need from us? How can we vote, advocate, and fight on their behalf? Don’t turn away, put your hand on your lawnmower, and ignore Jesus’ calling. Do something. 

If we can’t be the hands and feet of Christ in this world, then God is as good as nowhere. 

But if we can serve one another, and fight for a safe, loving, and just world, then God is now here, and there, and everywhere. 

Amen. 

 

*Hymn Swing Low, Sweet Chariot #701, v 1-3 
 

Offering  

Offertory  

 

*Doxology                                                                                              #94 

*Prayer of dedication             

  

Pastoral Prayer and Lord’s Prayer 

 

Holy God, when we can’t think of any solution other than war, make us smarter. 
When we begin to see others as expendable, remind us that they are also made in your divine image. 
When we say we can’t take care of everyone who needs help, make us more generous. 
When we are satisfied with the divisions between races and genders and economic classes in our country, make us dis-satisfied until all are treated equally. 
When we see weapons as our only choice, enlarge our imagination. 
When we refuse to see the need in your world, open our eyes. 
When we listen only to those who agree with us, open our ears. 
When we find comfort in ignorance, fill us with an insatiable desire to learn your Truth.  
When we grow comfortable with the way things are, agitate us until things are the way you want them to be.  
When we think violence is inevitable and peace unrealistic, surprise us. 
Prince of Peace, Forgive us. Amen. 

 

Christy Waltersdorff, pastor at York Center Church of the Brethren in Lombard, Illinois, shares this pastoral prayer for peace. 

 

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. 
 

*Hymn Great Is Thy Faithfulness #140 
 

Benediction 

 
Postlude  

 
 

 
Staff 

Natalie Bowerman Pastor 

Betsy Lehmann Music Director 

Joe White Custodian 

Cassandra Brown Nursery Attendant