Fourteenth after Pentecost

United in spirit, and gathered through the power of the Holy Spirit, we worship God with gladness. We encourage you to pray over the words that follow, and follow the links within the liturgy. Prayers in this service are adapted from Celebrate God’s Presence (UCPH). Thanks this week to Cor and Heather!

PRELUDE: “Great is thy faithfulness” (Runyan)

OPENING PRAYER

We come from scattered lives to this moment,
seeking unity in the Spirit,
seeking the grace of Christ,
seeking the peace of God.

seeking creativity in the Spirit,
seeking the compassion of Christ,
seeking knowledge of God.

seeking fellowship in the Spirit,
seeking companionship in Christ,
seeking union with God.
Speak to us though these words, Amen.

HYMN OF PRAISE: “Let us with a gladsome mind”

Let us with a gladsome mind
praise our God, forever kind;
whose great mercies still endure,
ever faithful, ever sure.

God, with all-commanding might,
filled the newmade world with light;
for God’s mercies still endure,
ever faithful, ever sure.

God has with a gracious eye
looked upon our misery;
for God’s mercies still endure,
ever faithful, ever sure.

All things living God does feed,
with full measure meets their need;
for God’s mercies still endure,
ever faithful, ever sure.

Let us then with gladsome mind,
praise our God, forever kind;
whose great mercies still endure,
ever faithful, ever sure.

PRAYER OF CONFESSION

In joy and in trouble,
help us, gracious God,
to trust your love,
to serve your purpose,
and to praise your name.

In joy and in trouble,
help us, gracious God,
to open our hearts,
to trust in you,
and welcome your mercy.

In joy and in trouble
help us, gracious God,
to forgive others, and ourselves,
knowing that forgiveness
comes from you alone. Amen.

ASSURANCE OF PARDON

God will give us what we need:
strength for today,
hope for tomorrow,
and forgiveness
for all that is past.
Amen.

SPECIAL MUSIC: “Just a Simple Love Song” (Rooyen)

FIRST READING: Psalm 119

33 Teach me, Lord, the way of your decrees,
that I may follow it to the end.
34 Give me understanding, so that I may keep your law
and obey it with all my heart.
35 Direct me in the path of your commands,
for there I find delight.
36 Turn my heart toward your statutes
and not toward selfish gain.
37 Turn my eyes away from worthless things;
preserve my life according to your word.
38 Fulfill your promise to your servant,
so that you may be feared.
39 Take away the disgrace I dread,
for your laws are good.
40 How I long for your precepts!
In your righteousness preserve my life.

SECOND READING: Roman 13.8-14

8 Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law. 9 The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not covet,” and whatever other command there may be, are summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbour as yourself.” 10 Love does no harm to a neighbour. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.

11 And do this, understanding the present time: The hour has already come for you to wake up from your slumber, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. 12 The night is nearly over; the day is almost here. So let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armour of light. 13 Let us behave decently, as in the daytime, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and jealousy. 14 Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the flesh.

HYMN: “Jesus bids us shine”

Jesus bids us shine with a pure, clear light,
like a little candle burning in the night.
In this world is darkness, so let us shine,
you in your small corner, and I in mine.

Jesus bids us shine first of all for him;
well he sees and knows it if our light grows dim:
Jesus walks beside us to help us shine,
you in your small corner, and I in mine.

Jesus bids us shine, then, for all around;
many kinds of darkness in the world are found:
sin, and want and sorrow; so we must shine,
you in your small corner, and I in mine.

REFLECTION

There’s something about the beginning of September and the need to review my summer reading list.

Maybe it’s a bit like that recurring dream where I wake up on the day of the exam and realize I forgot to take the course. I wish I was joking. Last year, the challenge was to only read books I bought at the dollar store, and this year it was to read books that have been hanging around too long. And some others.

So the first was “Imperfect Union: How Jessie and John Frémont Mapped the West, Invented Celebrity, and Helped Cause the Civil War” (by Steve Inskeep). You don’t need to read this book, it’s all in the subtitle. My first lapse in the program was reading “Trumpocalypse” by David Frum. In this case, all you need to know is in the title, four years in a single word.

Next was Rachel Maddow’s wonderful book, “Blowout: Corrupted Democracy, Rogue State Russia, and the Richest, Most Destructive Industry on Earth.” The industry, of course, is oil, and the book connects the dots between fracking, hacking, and authoritarian leaders. Needing to have my faith in democracy restored, I then read Ron Chernow’s Pulitzer Prize winning biography of George Washington. Excellent book, but it didn’t have the desired effect—something I hope to talk about in the near future.

The rest of the reading was a blur. Helen Castor’s fine biography of Joan of Arc, a wonderful little book called “Mudlark: In Search of London’s Past Along the River Thames” by Lara Maiklem, as well as Simon Schama’s “Landscape and Memory,” a book I’m embarrassed to say I have owned for over 20 years. Finally, I finished Kurt Andersen’s “Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire: A 500-Year History” (borrowed from Dr. Jim in 2017). It explained a lot. And remaining current, I’m still reading “White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism” by Robin DiAngelo. Again, I hope to say more about the book in a future sermon near you.

Sometimes I think it’s appropriate to step back and consider why we read. Some seek a distraction, entering a new (sometimes fictional) world. Some seek insight, learning about new topics or diving deeper into topics already familiar. Some seek assurance, words of comfort or conviction, or words that connect us to some higher need. Some seek confirmation, words that reinforce what we already suspect or believe. And some seek all of these, and leap from book to book happy with whatever comes.

So we open our Bibles this morning, and we read this:

Teach me, Lord, the way of your decrees,
that I may follow it to the end.
Give me understanding, so that I may keep your law
and obey it with all my heart.
Direct me in the path of your commands,
for there I find delight.
Turn my heart toward your statutes
and not toward selfish gain.

The psalmist has opened the law and seeks several things at once. Like an eclectic reader, the psalmist is looking for instruction, understanding, direction, and a heart for others. The psalmist wants to find meaning, assurance that God’s promises are sure, and salvation.

The first thing we should note (according to Walter Brueggemann) is the variety of ways the psalmist describes Torah. Beyond simply “the law,” Torah becomes statutes, decrees, commandments, ordinances, precepts, ways, and promises. It takes us out of a legalistic mode, and opens a library of guidance, the foundation on which we may stand.

But Brueggemann takes this a step further, and highlights the danger of choosing eight verses in the middle of a psalm. It would be easy to read these words and conclude that the primary concern is our personal relationship with God (B. calls this the vertical axis) and ignore the horizontal axis that’s at the heart of Torah. Jesus found the heart of the law in Deuteronomy (“Love the Lord your God”) and in Leviticus (“Love your neighbour as yourself”), creating a mandate that holds both axes together. Only in the context of a loving relationship with God can we find a way to love those around us.

Love your neighbour. It would be an understatement to say loving our southern neighbour is getting harder by the day. Elections are divisive by their very nature, but 2020 has taken this to the next level. It would be simplistic to set this at the feet of an individual (yet tempting), when these deep divisions have grown over decades, with fewer and fewer points of agreement by the day.

One of the truly frustrating aspects of our time is the seeming demise of truth. It was the late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan who said, “You are entitled to your own opinion, but you are not entitled to your own facts.” Somehow this wisdom slipped away, with everyone struggling to see a way forward. It’s one thing to disagree on the solution to a problem, but quite another to disagree on whether the problem exists at all.

The book that only took me three years to finish—Fantasyland— attempts to locate where this split began, where truth became just another dimension of personal expression. The author, Kurt Andersen, points to the 1960s. He argues that what we label as “counter-cultural” became the mainstream, and that all the ideas that we associate with hippies (“mistrust authority, do your own thing, find your own truth”) belonged, in fact, to everyone. I’ll let Andersen give you some examples:

The 1960s gave licence to everyone in America to let their freak flags fly—superselfish Ayn Randians as well as New Age Shamans; fundamentalists and evangelicals and charismatics; Scientologists, homeopaths, spiritual cultists, and academic relativists; left-wing and right-wing conspiracists; war reenactors and those abducted by Satan or extraterrestrials.

I think you get the picture. In effect, we entered a profoundly self-centred age: “What I believe is true because I want it to be true” or “What I believe is true because I feel it to be true.” Experts are no longer needed, nor the certainty of science, when my feelings about a topic become my truth. And I hope you see (based on Andersen’s quote) just how ecumenical this idea is: it’s not a left-right thing, or a liberal-conservative thing. People on the left are just as likely to dispute the science of genetically-modified foods as people on the right dispute climate change. Pick your truth.

This would be the moment in the sermon that I offer some solutions, or maybe just a poem while I back away from my metaphorical pulpit. I don’t have a poem, so I guess I’m stuck suggesting a way forward. In a word, it’s education. Apropos to the week, we need to get back to reading and learning about the world that surrounds us. We need to travel, and experience different cultures and learn new points-of-view (here in Toronto, you don’t need to travel far). And we need to be intentional about addressing gaps in our knowledge: at the library, on the internet, or with a learned friend. Only through education will we gain perspective on the problems that face us. Only through education will we find some common ground.

The psalmist is clamouring to get into this conversation, and point out something that we might not see on first reading. Each verse begins with a variation on “teach me”—turning to God for understanding. That’s the beginning. But each verse ends with the result.

With understanding: I can follow to the end.
With understanding: I can obey with my whole heart.
With understanding: I can find delight.
With understanding: I can follow your word.
With understanding: I can live without fear.
With understanding: I can live without disgrace.
With understanding: I can be preserved.

God will give us these things, and remind us to trust in God alone. God will give us these things, and allow us to see others in a new light. God will give us these things, so that we, in turn, give them to others.

Most of all, may we cherish the law of love and kindness, now and always, Amen.

PRAYERS OF THE PEOPLE

Seasons come, and seasons go,
but you, O God, are constant.
You meet us for each beginning,
and you hold us through each ending.
From dawn to dusk, you hold us fast,
and through the night you abide with us still.

Open our hearts and fill them with prayer,
prayer for the world you made,
prayer for your troubled creatures,
prayer for conflict wherever it may exist,
prayer for your kingdom come.

Hear is as we pray silently:
for those we love…
for those who we struggle to love…
for those held down by illness, grief, conflict or worry…
for those at the end of their rope, for whatever reason…
and for those who seek to begin anew…

Remember teachers, staff, helpers, parents, and students,
those who plan to return to school
and those who cannot.
Ease troubled hearts,
and help us to face this moment together.

We pray, as Jesus taught us…

THE LORD’S PRAYER

Our Father 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 trespass against us;
and lead us not into temptation
but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom,
and the power, and the glory,
for ever and ever. Amen.

HYMN: “To show by touch and word”

To show by touch and word devotion to the earth,
to hold in full regard all life that comes to birth,
we need, O God, the will to find
the good you had of old in mind.

Renew our minds to choose the things that matter most,
our hearts to long for truth till pride of self is lost.
For every challenge that we face
we need your guidance and your grace.

Let love from day to day be yardstick, rule, and norm,
and let our lives portray your word in human form.
Now come with us that we may have
your wits about us where we live.

BLESSING

Now may the God of peace make you holy in every way,
and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless
until our Lord Jesus Christ comes again. Amen.
—1 Thessalonians 5:23

God be with you till we meet again;
loving counsels guide, uphold you,
with a shepherd’s care enfold you;
God be with you till we meet again.

Postlude: “Just a Closer Walk with Thee”