It has been a busy couple of days here. Saturday I went to a Book of Faith Festival which I'll post about in a few days. Sunday morning was worship followed by a baby shower for two members of Bethlehem who are expecting a son at the end of the month. And yesterday afternoon I provided dinner at Luther House at Yale, which I'll probably also write about in a few days. But as I post most Sunday afternoons or Mondays I wanted to talk about worship.
Yesterday I just had fun in worship and I think the majority of the congregation did too. The opening hymn is one of my newer favorites (then again I have about 300 favorite hymns) We're Marching to Zion. It has a wonderful rhythm with a double clap beat and while a new hymn for Bethlehem I think others enjoyed the hymn and I even got a few people clapping. (Which if you aren't familiar with Lutheran churches, is VERY difficult to do.)
I didn't have a manuscript for my sermon because I decided to do more of a bible study format sermon. The gospel text is John 13:31-35. At first glance text seems to have three unrelated segments: a very confusing section about God, the Son of Man, glorification and lots of "him"s. A middle section when Jesus tells his disciples that he is only with them a little longer and a final section when Jesus gives the new commandment to love one another just as he has love them.
On Mondays, I send out an email to the congregation with links to the lessons for the coming Sunday along with some questions to chew on. This last Monday I joked that John 13:31-32 needs a flow chart so you can follow it. But instead of a flow chart I started with a Mad Libs. On a sheet of paper I wrote:
Now the Son of Man has been glorified and God has been glorified in _______. If God has been glorified in ______, God will glorify _______ in ______self and will glorify ______ at once.
We then filled in the "he"s and "him"s with who they are which we decided were:
Now the Son of Man has been glorified and God has been glorified in the Son of Man (aka Jesus). If God has been glorified in Jesus, God will glorify Jesus in Godself and will glorify God/Jesus/the Holy Spirit/All at once.
We then talked about glorify means. Some responses were: respect, honor, praise, worship, dignify.
So the second Mad-Lib looked like this:
Now the Son of Man has been ______ and God has been ______ in _______. If God has been ______ in ______, God will ______ _______ in ______self and will ______ ______ at once.
We then filled it in to read like this:
Now the Son of Man has been praised and God has been honored in the Son of Man (aka Jesus). If God has been respected in Jesus, God will worship Jesus in Godself and will dignify God/Jesus/the Holy Spirit/All at once.
We then discussed how we can glorify God, by asking the Lutheran Question: What does this mean to us? And of course one of the answers was to love others.
Which lead to the questions: what does it mean to love others? and how can we love others? At this point we sang a very jazzy version of Jesus Loves Me and one of the congregation members played the spoons while Lyudmila rocked out on the piano.
I then finished by talking about how sometimes it is hard to love others, it is hard to share with a stranger, it is hard to always listen to and not take advantage of the people we know best and it is hard to engage in conversation with the person who is an acquaintance. But we are able to share with, listen to, engage with, touch, respect, take delight in, and care for others because Jesus shares with, listens to, engages with, touches, respects, takes delight in and cares for us. And we are only able to love others because Jesus first loves us.
Overall it was just a fun service.
And the day was made even more delightful because after worship we had a baby shower. The amount of love that is shown to one another in this tiny church is amazing. Last week myself and one of the other planners of the shower were worried that no one would show up because no one had signed up, but we had over 20 people stay after worship for lunch and presents and I don't think the new parents will have to buy clothes for the baby any time soon.
I think it really says something when people have fun at church!
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