What's For Dinner?

 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 

August 14, 2022 

10:00 a.m. 

*You are invited to rise in body or spirit. 

  

Prelude Allegretto, Bagatelles, op. 119/1 Ludwig van Beethoven 

 

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 of the ages, we sing your praises 

in the vineyards of our lives. 

Tend the garden of our love. 

Where we have become ragged and wild, 

prune us in the way we should grow. 

Nurture the soil of our hope. 

Let your hand be upon us, leading us to Jesus, 

the perfecter of our faith. 

Heal the roots of our faith. 

Bring us rain in drought, shade in scorching heat, 

and protection in the wilderness. 

Protect the growth of our spirit. Amen. 

Sara Dunning Lambert 

  

*Hymn In the Garden #314 

              

Prayer of Confession: 

Divine God, 

we try to grow happily, patiently, and faithfully 

in the soil you have prepared for us. 

You feed us, shelter us, 

and provide for our daily needs. 

Yet, we often fail to offer you 

the fruit of our harvest. 

We act as though we were abandoned children, 

trying to make it on our own. 

We feel forsaken, attacked by wild boars, 

cut down by our enemies, and neglected 

in the wilderness of our lives. 

Yet, through it all, 

you remain faithful. 

Renew our lives once more, 

and we will call your name on high. 

  

Assurance: 

Be assured that God’s love is sufficient. 

In the warmth of the sun, the fertility of the soil, 

and the refreshment of life-giving water, 

we have been given all that we need. 

God hears our cries, and comes to save us. 

Through Christ we may lay aside our sins; 

through Christ, we know we are safe. 

 
 

Scripture Reading Leviticus 11:1-23 

Clean and Unclean Foods 

11 The Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying to them, 2 “Speak to the Israelites: 

“From among all the land animals, these are the creatures that you may eat. 3 Any animal that has divided hoofs and is cleft-footed and chews the cud—such you may eat. 4 But among those that chew the cud or have divided hoofs, you shall not eat the following: the camel, for even though it chews the cud, it does not have divided hoofs; it is unclean for you. 5 The rock badger, for even though it chews the cud, it does not have divided hoofs; it is unclean for you. 6 The hare, for even though it chews the cud, it does not have divided hoofs; it is unclean for you. 7 The pig, for even though it has divided hoofs and is cleft-footed, it does not chew the cud; it is unclean for you. 8 Of their flesh you shall not eat, and their carcasses you shall not touch; they are unclean for you. 

9 “These you may eat, of all that are in the waters. Everything in the waters that has fins and scales, whether in the seas or in the streams—such you may eat. 10 But anything in the seas or the streams that does not have fins and scales, of the swarming creatures in the waters and among all the other living creatures that are in the waters—they are detestable to you, 11 and detestable they shall remain. Of their flesh you shall not eat, and their carcasses you shall regard as detestable. 12 Everything in the waters that does not have fins and scales is detestable to you. 

13 “These you shall regard as detestable among the birds. They shall not be eaten; they are an abomination: the eagle, the vulture, the osprey, 14 the buzzard, the kite of any kind; 15 every raven of any kind; 16 the ostrich, the nighthawk, the sea gull, the hawk of any kind; 17 the little owl, the cormorant, the great owl, 18 the water hen, the desert owl,[a] the carrion vulture, 19 the stork, the heron of any kind, the hoopoe, and the bat.[b] 

20 “All winged insects that walk upon all fours are detestable to you. 21 But among the winged insects that walk on all fours you may eat those that have jointed legs above their feet, with which to leap on the ground. 22 Of them you may eat: locusts of every kind, bald locusts of every kind, crickets of every kind, and grasshoppers of every kind. 23 But all other winged insects that have four feet are detestable to you. 

 
 

Sermon What’s for Dinner? 

 

Friends, here we are in our second of seven weeks of Stump the Preacher 2022, sermons requested by you and then researched and put together by me. This morning’s topic comes from my friend Sarah, a parishioner from a congregation I once served, who wants to know what the deal is with pork and shellfish. Are we allowed to eat ribs and lobster? Why do some of our friends from other faiths abstain? What does the Bible teach us? And why? 

My first response to Sarah’s question is this list of the following sentences I have had to say to my kids that my brain would never have even formed before I became a mom: 

No, share! It’s your brother’s turn to wear the trashcan as a hat! 

No, you may not lick the floor. 

No, you may not lick the walls either. 

You definitely can’t lick the outlets. 

Or the windows. 

Or your shoes. 

Dude, can you just keep your tongue in your mouth unless I say otherwise? 

Ice cream isn’t a breakfast food. 

Don’t splash in the toilet. 

You can’t drive the car for at least ten more years. 

You can’t climb the refrigerator. 

You can’t get on the school bus naked. 

Don’t howl at the neighbor’s dog. 

Yes, I know that’s a “corn broom”, but that doesn’t mean you can eat it. 

I can keep going, and any of you in here who have cared for children could certainly add to this list and know what I’m getting at: trying to keep a kid safe and healthy is an exhausting job. Our kids are exploring a whole new world, and want to (literally) eat and drink it all in. Curiosity is healthy, exploration is healthy, play is healthy. But we draw the line at outlets. When you’re caring for someone who wants to try everything and you have the job of keeping them alive, you quickly sound like a total buzz kill. Eventually, though, the one you’re caring for starts to understand, and while the rules don’t fundamentally change, you can stop yelling these ridiculous sentences at some point. 

When my friend Sarah asked about the Mosaic Laws about shellfish and pork, she was referencing this morning’s scripture reading, from Leviticus 11. The most conservative biblical interpreters will tell us that Moses himself wrote all five books of the Christian Pentateuch or the Jewish Torah—Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. While I don’t buy that theory, the latter four of those books certainly tell us what a huge responsibility Moses took upon himself at God’s urging. The book of Genesis ends with the story of Joseph, his “amazing technicolor dreamcoat”, his eleven brothers and one sister, and their settlement in Egypt and eventual seat of power there in the wake of a plague in their homeland. When Exodus picks up, the descendants of this family have lived in Egypt for decades and have vastly multiplied in numbers, and the new Pharoah in town feels threatened. He enslaves this whole ethnic group, “the Hebrews”, and orders the boys among them killed at birth. Moses is raised in the Pharaoh’s palace because of his mom’s brilliance, but flees Egypt after he kills a guy. God hunts him down in hiding, and tells him it’s all on his shoulders to free all the Hebrews from slavery, relocate them to Canaan, and keep them safe along the way.  

This passage from Leviticus is squarely in the middle of that story, in the wilderness. The Hebrews are little grateful to no longer be enslaved, because they once lived in a settled land, and at least they knew what to expect and when they would be fed. Throughout the forty years that Moses leads the Hebrews through the wilderness, he’s constantly one tantrum away from a mutinee, a catastrophic injury, a disease breakout, or running out of the rations his people need to live. As a tremendous mercy, and to get the wrath of the Hebrews off of Moses, God begins giving Moses very specific rules to hand down to the people. These rules, which become the Law of Moses, cover everything from how, when, and what to eat, what to wear, how to bathe, how short to cut your hair, and a plethora of topics spanning any question of living Moses may have. The laws surrounding food are called the Kashrut. The Law may read burdensome now, but how many of us caregivers have wished our loved ones came with an instruction manual? In this one case in human history, God actually provided one! Bet you never thought you’d envy Moses! 

Thousands of years later, what we put on our dinner plate every night is still a complicated topic, one that may or may not be informed by what you read in scripture. Many of our Jewish, Muslim, and Seventh-Day Adventist friends abstain from pork on shellfish, and the rationale is found right in these verses. But, society changes, food availability changes, the environment changes, and people change. I have never thought to serve camel meat at my house for dinner, and that has nothing to do with Leviticus. Similarly, I appreciate God allowing me to eat locusts, but I’ll pass, thanks. To my friend Sarah, I’d say we hardly, if ever, eat pork or shellfish at my house, not because of anything in the Bible, but because Mommy’s a vegetarian. If my husband has a craving for shellfish he can get some door dashed from Red Lobster. 

A few things strike me, though, when we look at this question from a modern lens. One is how many people can’t eat shellfish, not because of a religious restriction, but because they’re allergic—roughly 2% of the US population is allergic to shellfish. Did God give Moses this advice in order to protect his people from anaphylaxis? It makes you think. 

The other angle I look at this from is one of food ethics. Like I said, I don’t eat pork or shellfish because I stopped eating meat at all when I was thirteen. I had, and have, lots of reasons for that—financial, health, environmental, and ethical. A food like lobster really turns my stomach because you have to boil them alive. God alone rules your conscience, so I can’t tell you what to think about that, but I couldn’t touch the stuff. As for something like pork, I’ve learned over the years, partly from working a few different food service jobs, that turning animals into dinner entrees is a dark affair. Factories that take that on use a huge amount of energy and leave a colossal carbon footprint. In a time when we face a crisis over climate change, that matters. Even for animals that aren’t boiled alive like lobsters, they hardly face humane conditions as they are raised, housed, fed, and then eventually killed, and I won’t say more from the pulpit about that and ruin your lunch, I’ll just let you go read The Jungle by Upton Sinclair. I believe animals have more moral value than that, and we need to treat them with more respect, if not for their sake, then because being good stewards of God’s Creation requires us to. I further ask, when looking at a questionable industry like factory farming, do the people employed there have safe working conditions and a living wage? Whenever the answer is no, our dollars become a moral voice, and we validate it when we buy it. 

A lot of you are going to hear all of this and say, hey, that’s great, but if God didn’t want me to eat bacon God shouldn’t have made it so tasty. I hear you. And that’s perfectly fine. Most Christian people don’t abide by any of these biblical food restrictions, and the UMC has no teachings on this, at least not from a “what is and isn’t allowed” perspective. You need to look at all the information in front of you and then make the best decision you can. 

Ultimately, I look to the words of Jesus. In Mark 7, Jesus urges his followers to understand that “there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile.” To put it tritely, Jesus would not say that you are what you eat. And he cared much more about feeding the poor than about what the poor were eating. So then, on that note, I’m going to conclude here: have some porkchops and crab for dinner tonight if that makes your taste buds happy. But some of your neighbors are skipping dinner and going to bed hungry. Next time you’re in a position to, support the food pantry so your neighbors can have a satisfying dinner, too. 

 

Amen. 

 
 

*Hymn Hymn of Promise #707 

 
 

Offering Moderato cantabile, Bagatelles, op.119/8 Beethoven 

 
 

Offertory  

 

*Doxology #94 

*Prayer of dedication             

  

Pastoral Prayer and Lord’s Prayer 

 

We give you thanks and praise always, O God, 

for your love surpasses all and your will is ever good.  

Like a potter at the wheel you created every part of us, 

shaping us in secret in the hidden depths.  

You read our inmost thoughts and desires and keep your hand upon us, 

reshaping us as seems good to you 

whenever we allow ourselves to become misshapen 

through our allegiance to those who do not walk in your ways 

or by the acts of our own will.  

Praise be to your name for your continuous mercy and grace... 

Lord, hear our prayer.... 

Loving and creative God, 

make us the people you want us to be 

and help us to follow in the path of Christ Jesus your Son each day 

and to proclaim your saving love in all that we say and do....  

Lord, hear our prayer... 

Father, we pray today for your hand of blessing 

to be upon those we have named before in our sharing time— 

and those we name before you now in the silence of our hearts... 

(bidding prayer) 

Lord hear our prayer.... 

We ask these things through Christ Jesus our Saviour, 

he who lives and reigns with you and the Holy  Spirit, 

one God, both now and evermore. Amen 

~ written by Rev. Richard J. Fairchild, and posted on Kir-shalom. http://www.rockies.net/~spirit/sermons/c-or23sn.php 

 

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 O Day of God, draw Nigh #730, vv. 1,2,5 

 
 

Benediction 

 
Postlude Let All Things Now Living Traditional Welsh (Ash Grove) 

Lloyd Larson, arr.  

 
 

Staff 

Natalie Bowerman Pastor 

Betsy Lehmann Music Director 

Joe White Custodian 

Cassandra Brown Nursery Attendant