Ready, Steady, Go! Liturgy and the Art of Being Sent

 This sermon can be listened to here

Gate Pa – Lent 5 Year B - 2021

Readings:

Hebrew Scripture:    Jeremiah 31: 31-34

Psalm:                         51:1-12

Epistle:                        Hebrews 5: 5-10

Gospel:                        John 12:20-35

What I want to say:

The fourth in the series of sermons looking at the Anglican Liturgical Tradition as a vehicle by which we are gathered by Triune God into the worship that eternally exists within creation so that we might be shaped by the story of the people of God and join in God’s mission acting as a foretaste of the word to come.

 

What I want to happen:

More people to offer to take on roles within our weekly worship

People to more intentionally engage with what we do on Sundays.

The Sermon

     1.     Introduction: 

Over last few weeks described Lent as a season inspired by Jesus’ time in wilderness.

where his identity as “beloved son” was tested

Lent originates in time given in early church to those about to be baptised at Easter

In baptism left behind old identity, old ways of describing themselves

-         Family

-         Trade

-         Place in empire

Became “beloved children of God”.

Based on that Lent is a season for us to spend time asking –

-         What does it mean for US to be beloved child of God?

o   Or as heard last week from Ephesians – God’s works of art?

-         How does that shape our identity?

-         What does it mean for us?

-         How will we live that out?

-         What will we trade it for?

       2.     Liturgy re cap

Over this lent

-         Exploring how God gifts and uses our liturgical tradition as way helping us deeply know that we are beloved children of God

-         and helping us know how to live that out

Reading book by American Lutheran Pastor Nadia Bolz-Weber @@@

-         Brought up fundamentalist Church of Christ

-         Tattooed recovering alcoholic

-         Accidentally found liturgy when accompanied future husband to service

“It was in those first couple of months that I fell in love with liturgy, the ancient pattern of worship shared mainly with Catholic, Lutheran, Orthodox and Episcopalian/Anglican churches. It felt kike a gift that had been caretaken by generations of the faithful that had been handed to us to live out, and caretake, and hand off. Like a stream that had flowed long before us and will continue long after us. A stream that we get to swim in, so that we, like those who came before us, can be immersed in the language of truth, and promise and grace. Something about the liturgy was simultaneously destabilizing and centering. My individualism being subverted by being joined to other people through God to find who I was. Somehow it happened through God. One specific divine force….” (Pastrix: the cranky, beautiful faith of a sinner & saint. New York ; Boston ; Nashville : Jericho Books, 2014)

I wonder how much that describes your experience of liturgy

       3.     Flow

Looked at how liturgy is more than words in the book

-         everything we do

-         All it involves

-         Includes singing

o   Actions

o   Silence

o   Symbols

o   Colours

ð multisensory

Our liturgical tradition has a flow and structure that includes: @@@

GATHER –  Gathered by the Spirit of God into the worship that eternally exists within God and in fabric of creation

-         gathered by God with all who have and will join us in worship

-         We gather by and in God with each other;

STORY - We engage with the whole story of scripture

-         embedded in liturgy itself

-         hear whole story every three years

-         invited to wrestle with it

-         actively engage in its work of forming and transforming us to be people of God

This week focus on GO - We are sent out as people of God to join God in mission

-         not so much as individuals

-         but as God’s missional people

-         joining work of God

       4.     Missional people

Another theme about our liturgical tradition is that it is outward focussed

-         Not about me

-         Not even about us

-         About God’s creation and all who live here

-         Seed of our own self importance has to die so that we can become part of God’s ongoing work of restoring humanity as God’s works of art, as God’s beloved children

-         So that creation might be renewed.

In our gathered worship we rehearse acting as a foretaste of the world to come

For example

-         responding to invitation to be gathered

-         way we speak to each other

-         Way we act towards each other – forgiving and sharing the peace

Way we all gather around the Eucharistic table @@@

-          

ð Recalling Jesus actions in last supper after he had washed his disceiples’ feet

§  Recalling with those disciples all other meals Jesus ate

§  Breaking down barriers that said these people were of importance to God

§  These people were too sinful for God and were excluded

·        Tax collectors

·        Prostitutes

·        Widows

·        Orphans

·        Sick

§  We re-enact God’s generosity and hospitality.

       5.     Culture  

Part of this transforming work is in liturgies relationship to culture

-         Transcultural – come another time and place

ð Basically same were-ever world you are – UK, USA, Canada, Australia, Hong Kong, Mexico, Brazil, Israel

-         Contextual – our liturgy comes out of our context

ð References to tussock and wetas, tui etc…

ð Something about those within them

-         Cross cultural – Languages it is written in –Hindi, Fiji, Samoa, Tongan

ð English, Maori,

-         Counter cultural

       6.     Intercessions

Looked at a specific role each week

This week intercessors.

-         Part of the story

-         Part of the go

WHY PRAY AS A COMMUNITY?

WHAT DO YOU THINK IS GOING ON WHEN WE PRAY?

 

So what are the prayers of the people?

Our liturgy includes a variety of prayers. There are prayers of adoration and confession which normally occur in the gathering.

Page 411 of our New Zealand prayer book (He Karakia Mihinare o Aotearoa) states that the Prayers of the People are prayers of thanksgiving and intercession. We usually pray them after we have heard the scripture readings and, usually, a sermon. We can say that the prayers of the people are our response as Gods gathered people to the living Word of God we have experienced in the liturgy and the words of scripture.

 

What do we do in these prayers?

As the prayer book says, we are invited to “pray for the church and the world, giving thanks for God’s goodness.” The prayer book suggests we pray for a number of things at this time. These are:

•          Both the universal and the local church

•          The world and our nation

•          Our local community and the community of heaven, the saints

•          Those in need, including those who are dying and those who have died

•          Our own needs and ministries.

And to each of these headings we bring not only prayers of thanksgiving and intercessory prayers, but also prayers of lament.

 

Intercessory prayers?

Yes, where we pray for ourselves and others?

 

Why would we want to pray for all these different people and things?

Because praying for others is at the heart of our Christian vocation. It is who we are.

John’s gospel says that “God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten Son.” Praying these prayers also helps us as the Christian community to place ourselves in the world that God loves. It reminds us that the gospel and worship isn’t about us but about God’s world.

 

What does that mean?

We believe in a God who continues to be at work in the world and in us. In worship we are invited by God into the mystery of this God, to be formed and transformed. In our liturgical worship we are slowly sandpapered to become God’s people.

Part of this transformation is we are asked to discern or take note of God’s ongoing activity in the world, and we are invited to join with God in God’s ongoing mission. So the prayers of the people is one place where we intentionally stand with God in God’s world. We can understand it in part as preparing to be sent out as God’s people.

 

So what you are saying is that we are not drawing things to God’s attention and asking God to fix it?

Absolutely. God already knows about everything we think about and pray about. God doesn’t need this time. We do. It is about us.

 

We need it?

Yes. Through the gathering and the ministry of the word we are invited to see the world though God’s eyes. And now we are given a place to practice looking at God’s world in this way. And we will respond to this in a number of ways.

These prayers are also times when we give thanks for God’s ongoing activity in the world. Sometimes we forget to do this, but it is an important part of seeing the world through God’s eyes.

But there will also be times we will lament. What is happening in the world will cause us to grieve and mourn. So at times the prayers of the people will include prayers of lament. WE can be honest with God.

Finally this is a time for us to pray for those things that concern us. And we do this not out of despair and hopelessness, but in the knowledge and hope of the resurrection, knowing God is already at work in each situation bringing that resurrection hope.

From that we then offer ourselves, all that we have and are, in the offertory as we enter into the Ministry of the Sacrament.

       7.     Go 

We go now to love and serve the Lord

Amen, we go in the name of Christ

 

 

 

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