What Will We Inherit?

 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.org

Order of Worship

November 26, 2023

Christ the King Sunday

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:

Make a joyful noise to the Lord.

Worship God with gladness.

Come into God’s presence with singing.

We are God’s people, the sheep of God’s pasture.

Give thanks to the Lord; bless God’s holy name,

for God’s steadfast love is present now and endures forever.

*Hymn                All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name             #154, v 1-4

Prayer of Confession:

Holy One,

we are like sheep

that stray from your fold.

We are the perpetually hungry,

ever in spiritual need,

and at times in physical want.

We are the naked,

with wounds exposed and bleeding.

We are the sick,

fevered, chilled, and in pain.

We are the strangers,

separated from others

and even from ourselves.

Hear us now as we confess our brokenness

and our need. Amen.

Assurance:

Our creator God sees our hunger and gives us food.

Christ, the healer, touches our wounds,

offering comfort and blessed relief.

The Spirit blows through us,

cools our fever, and eases our pain.

God sees and touches and heals our wounds.

Scripture Reading Matthew 25: 31-46

The Judgment of the Nations

31 “When the Son of Man comes in his glory and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. 32 All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, 33 and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left. 34 Then the king will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world, 35 for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, 36 I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’ 37 Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food or thirsty and gave you something to drink? 38 And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you or naked and gave you clothing? 39 And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’ 40 And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did it to me.’ 41 Then he will say to those at his left hand, ‘You who are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels, 42 for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ 44 Then they also will answer, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison and did not take care of you?’ 45 Then he will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ 46 And these will go away into eternal punishment but the righteous into eternal life.”

Sermon                                 What Will We Inherit?

Friends, today it’s Christ the King Sunday, which is one of my favorite holidays in the whole Church year even though few people really know what that is. In fact, this day gets “skipped” a lot, despite how important it is. It often falls the same week as Thanksgiving Sunday, and gets overshadowed. And because Christmas Eve is a Sunday this year–the dream of every pastor (see the sarcasm in my bloodshot eyes)--some churches have decided to start Advent a week early to that they’re not going to church in the morning for Advent IV and then coming back in the evening for Christmas Eve. As we’ve been announcing, we don’t roll like that here at EPUMC, so you lucky ducks will get two services on Christmas Eve, and Christ the King this morning.

So what even is Christ the King Sunday, other than that one random Sunday at the end of November where we put out the white paraments?

This Sunday is like the New Year’s Eve of the Church calendar, and it’s the last Sunday of our year. Nope, don’t panic, your calendars aren’t wrong, it’s November 26th, you still have four more weeks to shop for those Christmas presents. But our Church year, which has its own calendar, begins next week, on the First Sunday of Advent, with us preparing for the birth of a baby Jesus. Our church year ends this Sunday, right here, with this day where we reflect on Jesus, the 33 year old man, and King.

What does a sentence like “Jesus is King” mean to you? Today is a great day to ponder that question. I had a version of it typed out, complete with supporting quotes from famous dead guys, back when I was making my case to get ordained. But now that I’m a few years removed from that, I need to sit next to Jesus for a while, without the pressures of ecclesial advancement, and see if less academic words speak to my heart in this season. Similarly, my 4 year old apparently has an entire sermon prepared on this topic for you. I poured him a cup of grape juice, and he announced that he was holding the cup of Jesus’ blood, and that Jesus is King. He spent the next 20 minutes preaching soteriology to me. So, 1: Cassandra’s more than earning her wage over in the nursery. And 2: the PKs always give themselves away at parties.

What is a King to you, and what kind of King do you want Jesus to be? That sentence that Xander was so eager to proclaim at the snack table, “Jesus is King”, will sound different to every pair of ears. We have some material evidence that during the Revolutionary War, Colonial soldiers crossed the word “King” out of their Bibles every time it was used in reference to the Holy, because that word was nothing but Bad News to them. Fair enough. To Xander, he might imagine our world like it’s a fairy tale pop up book, and Jesus is in the pretty castle, with a moat and a drawbridge and a dragon, and Jesus is the Good Guy, protecting the Kingdom. In countries that still have monarchies, the sentence “Jesus is King” may sound as subversive and revolutionary as it did to our four Gospel writers. For those who balk at making a connection between wealth, material goods, and the Church, pairing crowns and thrones with Jesus might feel icky. For others, the patriarchy those images evoke may do you in. For others still, “King” may be one of a thousand different nicknames for Christ, and not even your favorite. This is just the season you hear it a little more. Ultimately, only you can decide who Jesus is to you, and that can change every year, every day, and even every hour.

What sticks for me, right now, is that if Jesus is King, then he is at the end of everything, the source of everything, the owner of everything, and the one we’re all facing, even if we don’t know it. He cares for us, and manages who gets what in the Kingdom. I happen to love the theological concept of the Kingdom of God, and usually think of it in just those terms, even though many of my colleagues drop the G and proclaim the “Kin-dom of God”, and they’re not wrong. They emphasize family, which we all are on this planet. But if you keep that G, then the Kingdom of God declares that we’re all part of the same neighborhood, even with folx who live far away, think very differently, live very differently, vote very differently, worship very differently, and love very differently. Jesus’ Kingdom is the ink that stays on the map while we humans draw our open borders in crayon. That means our Israeli and Palestinian friends are in one Kingdom, and we’re in it with them.

In today’s lectionary-appointed Gospel passage, one that is deeply beloved and very popular to preach from, Jesus focuses on how we care for one another in the Kingdom, and what we inherit, based on how we treat one another. He compels us to see the far-reaching consequences of our actions. He hammers in that we won’t know the full extent of what we’re doing when we do it. When he reveals the end result to us, it may be far too late to undo the damage we did when we weren’t thinking. Don’t wait until then, he cautions us.

Every generation, every tradition, and every subculture of Christianity has had varying interpretations of what our focus should be, and what our actions would look like if we lived by the Good Book. And because we’ve used the words contained therein to go to literal wars with one another over every topic from whether we should say “debts” or “trespasses” in the Lord’s Prayer, to whether the correct parament color for Advent is blue or purple, to how much money is enough for a person and for a Church, to whether or not women can be ordained, and, for that matter, if we consider them fully human, to whether or not it is ethical to own slaves, to immigration, interfaith discourse, LGBTQIA rights, gun ownership, and then right back to whether the font on the bulletins should be Times New Roman or Arial, it often shocks Christians what Jesus didn’t actually care about–he preferred Courier New anyway–and what Jesus did care about. In his words: the hungry, the thirsty, the naked, the sick, the prisoner, and the stranger. Who lacks the most basic of life’s necessities, and how do we help? And when do we look the other way?

When reflecting on this passage in the past, I’ve frequently focused on “whatever you did, you did to me”. But today I’m much more focused on why Jesus started talking about this in the first place: he was teaching about our inheritance from the Kingdom of God. After we live however many more months or years we do on this earth, and we meet Jesus face to face, and have a chat about how we impacted the earth while we were on it, what will we say for ourselves, and how will we feel looking back at our legacies? And, more soberingly, if we inherit whatever we did here, then what are we inheriting? How much did we give, and how much did we take? When were we kind, and when did we feel love, and when were we cruel? When did we experience hostility? Maybe we shouldn’t wait until we’re dead to start asking these questions.

As a lot of y’all know, I had a week. I couldn’t be here last Sunday because on Saturday afternoon I began experiencing symptoms of The Plague, better known to most of you as the stomach flu. It hit my house swiftly and mercilessly. I had all my Sunday morning notes ready to go, which meant I could pass them on to Becky, but my body was in no shape to be here, and the last thing I wanted was to bring my germs to church and be responsible for all of you being sick over Thanksgiving. So, as I spent the week cooped up at home cleaning up after five people’s unspeakable GI distress, I could do little more than observe the world around me, from the bathroom on my smartphone. I saw Israel and Palestine call a temporary ceasefire, at long last, and Palestine return more hostages to Israel, also at long last. But I saw many prisoners of war still captive in Palestine, and Israel dropping an immense number of bombs right before that ceasefire took effect. Can those two countries know real peace, and, more importantly, will they know actual justice? In much lesser news, I saw a comedian in his late 20s get his own Netflix special only to enrage the crowd by joking about domestic violence in the first two minutes. When pressed for some kind of apology, he doubled down on his contempt for women with contempt for people with disabilities. I’d say his name, but I won’t, mostly because I really hope after all this I never hear it again. We’re all responsible for building the Kingdom all the time, even when we think it’s someone else’s job, and history has eyes. I hope that young man opens his. I read several local news releases about school districts in our area that are going to start giving free breakfasts and lunches to their entire student body, regardless of that child’s household income. It doesn’t matter who they are or what they have, children thrive when they’re fed. Many celebrated the news, and urged that every public school in the nation should have free meals. But many more grumbled about the burden to the taxpayers, and why they should feed your kids if you can’t. Some of us have empty tummies, and some of us have empty hearts. We need both filled. Yesterday, while scrolling through the United Methodist News Service, I stumbled over an article that called the UMC a “rural church in an urban world”. And it was one of the more insightful think pieces I’ve read lately about the future of our denomination. David Scott, the author of this article, detailed how the United States currently has more Post Offices than United Methodist congregations, and that’s leftover from our rapid expansion into the unsettled frontier in the 19th Century. 200 years ago, focusing on remote and rural communities meant growth, especially in America. But now 80% of US citizens live in and near major cities. Which means the writing is on the wall for dwindling churches out in farming communities. How do we grow? Where should our focus be? I would argue, the Good and Godly shows up in kindness, wherever you find it.

For example, I used my smartphone, while half passed out in my living room couch, to email Becky my sermon notes, so she could do a beautiful job preaching for me. When I had to miss the first Harvest Dinner we’ve had in four years–serious bummer–Alicia and Andy brought us leftovers, which was our salvation, because I found out the hard way that when Mommy’s unable to cook, Daddy and the kids can’t even make toast. Ann took the kids to do fun holiday stuff while Mom and Dad were both barely on our feet, and Sean’s co-workers covered for him so he could take a few days off. 

Now that we’re better, our job is to pay it forward, because in this Kingdom none of us thrive unless all of us do. If our neighbor is hungry, none of the food we eat will ever fill our void. If our neighbor is thirsty, our houses crumble into dust and blow away. If our neighbor is naked, our hypocrisy is showing. If our neighbor is sick and no one helps, our vitals drop. And if our neighbor is locked up and lonely, it means we’ve put ourselves behind bars, too. After how we’ve lived, what does our neighborhood, our Kingdom, our world look like? What will we look back on and see, and what will our children grow up in? Let’s start caring today.

Amen.

*Hymn                    All People That on Earth Do Dwell                     #75

 

Offering

Offertory

*Doxology #94

*Prayer of dedication           

Pastoral Prayer and Lord’s Prayer

Creator God,

revealed to us in Jesus of Nazareth,

present to us now through your Spirit,

we hear your call to care

for the lost, the last, the little, and the least

that even through us your grace may touch their lives.

Loving God,

friend of outcast and stranger

prejudiced in favour of those whom others reject,

we hear your call to care for those on the margins of our world;

Aboriginal sisters and brothers lost in their own land,

refugees seeking asylum and new hope,

those excluded from our communities.

May our ministry offer dignity and respect to each and every person

and offer a place at table for the stranger and the outcast.

Gracious God,

relating to us as a generous parent

offering yourself in love to every person

we hear your call to offer hope of renewed relationships

where trust and love have been displaced by fear and jealousy,

where family has become a place of abuse rather than nurture

where hurts, real or imagined, remain unforgiven.

May our ministry offer your gifts of grace and reconciliation

and hold out the hope of restored and renewed human relationships.

Living God

known to us in the dance of community we call Trinity

mediated to us through the common life of the church

we hear your call to offer new communities of meaning and hope

to those who live in isolation and emptiness

to those whose lives lack purpose and direction

to those seeking a safe place to nurture their journey of spirit.

May our ministry offer the hope of deep and trusted friendship

and a way to find connectedness with those who share the journey of life.

God beyond all names

whose presence lives in those you call by name

whose presence goes before us into the lives of those to whom we minister

we hear your call to serve in a variety of places.

We pray that each one of us

as we serve you in our particular ministry

may find renewed depth in our relationship with you,

may be confirmed in our call to this ministry,

may find our gifts and call affirmed as we offer them in service,

may become a part of a healthy and life-giving community of faith.

Hear these our prayers

as we offer them in the name of Jesus

Amen.

— written by Rob, on the Rob’s Prayers page of the Uniting Church SA website. http://mrn.sa.uca.org.au/resources/prayers-and-liturgies/373-robs-prayers-.html

For other prayers of intercession, see the Scriptural Prayer Index at the upper right side of the page, or click on Intercession in the list of “Labels” at the lower right.

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, the Power, and the Glory forever. Amen.

*Hymn                       Crown Him with Many Crowns                       #327

Benediction

Postlude

---

Staff

Natalie Bowerman Pastor

Betsy Lehmann Music Director

Joe White Custodian

Cassandra Brown Nursery Attendant