Lent IV

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 Taye, Cor, and Heather!

Today we welcome the Rt. Rev. Richard Bott, Moderator of the United Church. A native of Marathon, Ontario, Richard was ordained in 1994, and has served in Ontario and British Columbia, most recently as minister of Pacific Spirit United Church in Vancouver. Elected Moderator in 2018, Richard has brought his passion for writing to the role, along with an interest in discipleship and congregational renewal. Due to the pandemic, the Moderator has agreed to extend his term for an extra year, a gift to the church in this difficult time. We are grateful that Richard will help us celebrate our first anniversary event.

PRELUDE: “Joy Come in the Morning” (Cox/Berry)

OPENING PRAYER:

Ever-gracious God,
you call people from near and far
into the fellowship of our church,
building upon the foundation
of the apostles and prophets,
upon Jesus Christ, our companion and Lord,
and upon all the saints who have gone before us.
We give you thanks for 200 years of church life,
and especially for the various ministries
that define our life together.
We give you thanks for all in our midst today.
Continue to watch over our congregation, we pray;
help us to fulfill your mission,
on the streets that surround our church,
and around the world.
Fill us again and again with your Spirit;
and deepen our faith and our relationship with you,
so that we might continue to be faithful co-workers with you—
“that all the world might see” you and praise you.
In the name of Jesus Christ who is our Head
and our Cornerstone. Amen.

HYMN OF PRAISE: “Great is thy faithfulness”

Great is thy faithfulness, God our Creator;
there is no shadow of turning with thee;
thou changest not, thy compassions, they fail not;
as thou hast been thou forever wilt be.
Great is thy faithfulness! Great is thy faithfulness!
Morning by morning new mercies I see;
all I have needed thy hand hath provided –
great is thy faithfulness, ever to me!

Summer and winter and springtime and harvest,
sun, moon, and stars in their courses above
join with all nature in manifold witness
to thy great faithfulness, mercy, and love. R

Pardon for sin and a peace that endureth,
thine own dear presence to cheer and to guide,
strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow –
wondrous the portion thy blessings provide. R

PRAYER OF CONFESSION

Stir up the wills of your people, O God.
End our lethargy, and
move us into new ways of living.
Stir up the minds of your people, O God.
End our thoughtlessness, and
move us into deeper ways of thinking.
Stir up the hearts of your people, O God.
End our apathy, and
move us into fuller ways of loving.
Stir us thoroughly, O God.
Let us worship you afresh. 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: “Lean on Me” (Withers)

FIRST READING: Psalm 107

O give thanks, for God is gracious;
God’s steadfast love endures for ever.
Let the redeemed of God say so, those redeemed from trouble,
whom God gathered in from the lands,
from the east and the west,
from the north and the south.

Some lost their way in desert wastes, finding no place to settle;
hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted within them.
Then they cried to you, God, in their trouble;
you rescued them from their distress.
You led them by a straight path,
till they reached a place to settle.
Let them thank you, O God, for your steadfast love,
for the wonders you do for us.
For you satisfy the thirsty,
and fill the hungry with good things.

SECOND READING: John 3.14-21

14 Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, 15 that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.”

16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. 19 This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. 20 Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. 21 But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.

HYMN: “Come, O Fount of every blessing”

Come, O Fount of every blessing,
tune my heart to sing your grace;
streams of mercy, never ceasing
call for songs of endless praise.
Teach me some melodious sonnet,
sung by flaming tongues above.
Praise the mount; I’m fixed upon it,
mount of God’s unfailing love.

Here I pause in my sojourning,
giving thanks for having come,
come to trust, at every turning,
God will guide me safely home.
Jesus sought me when a stranger,
wandering from the fold of God,
came to rescue me from danger,
precious presence, precious blood.

O, to grace how great a debt
or daily I am drawn anew!
Let that grace now, like a fetter,
bind my wandering heart to you.
Prone to wander, I can feel it,
wander from the love I’ve known:
here’s my heart, O, take and seal it,
seal it for your very own.

REFLECTION

Editor’s note: We were unable to obtain an advanced copy of the Moderator’s homily, so we share a sermon Michael first preached on March 26, 2006.

Where is this quote from?

They can be a great people…if they wish to be. They only lack the light to show the way. For this reason above all–for their capacity for good–I have sent them you, my only son.

I confess to a terrible trick. Here at the halfway point in the service you have been marinating in the third chapter of John, and the remarkably familiar sixteenth verse, and so the above quote feels biblical. You could even say it feels “Johannine” (meaning in the style of John) and impress your friends. But alas, it is neither Johannine or even biblical: it is from the trailer of the movie “Superman Returns.”

Superman comes to us from the fertile minds of the late Jerry Siegel and the late Joe Shuster. Shuster, born here in Toronto, moved to Toledo, Ohio at the age of nice and befriended Siegel. They shared a love for science fiction and for comics and collaborated on a number of projects, but nothing like the story that debuted on June 1st, 1938. “Superman” was a huge success, and though a multitude of incarnations and a multitude of imitators, remains the gold standard for superheroes. (By the way, if you have a copy of that first issue tucked away, you have the most valuable comic ever published)

The problem with the trailer for this instalment of Superman is in the allusion. Listen again:

They can be a great people…if they wish to be. They only lack the light to show the way. For this reason above all–for their capacity for good–I have sent them you, my only son.

This injection of Jesus-language (“my only son”) wouldn’t sit well with Shuster and Siegel, a couple of Jewish boys who wanted to retell the story of Moses through their hero Superman. All the elements are there: sent as infants from the troubled place of their birth (Kryptonite, slavery in Egypt) to a better place (earth, the palace of Pharaoh) each embarks on a journey of self-discovery. Both must resolve their duel identity problem (Clark Kent/Superman, Prince of Egypt/Moses) and the appearance of miraculous powers, in order to do good.

The movie built on the success of the television show “Smallville,” a show that tells the story of Clark Kent as a teenager. The show has an innocent feel to it, and some not-so-hidden Christian undertones, and for this reason has been popular with some Christians. The trailer is no accident, building on “Smallville” and using the language of John’s Gospel to turn Superman (aka Moses) into Jesus.

This, however, is not the first time there has been some Jesus-Moses fusion going on. John himself does it as he tells the story of a conversation between Jesus and the Jewish leader Nicodemus:

As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up; so that whoever believes will in Him have eternal life.

The lifting up refers to Numbers 21, the miraculous sign that brings healing in the desert. The Israelites are complaining so bitterly that God sent poisonous snakes to punish them. In some of the most realistic dialogue in the Bible, the Israelites say “we hate this stupid manna.” (Without a doubt, this passage of scripture was written by someone with small children). God quickly repents of the snakes and through Moses gives them the symbol of healing that doctors continue to use, the snake on a staff.

The comparison here, Jesus as the Son of Man also lifted up, doesn’t quite work. It is as if John is trying too hard, trying to draw a parallel between the miraculous healing power of the snake-staff and the power of the cross. He is trying to draw the followers of Moses (Jewish readers of his Gospel) into the story of Jesus and his death. He is trying to build a bridge between what has become two camps in his community: Jewish Christians within the church and Jewish non-Christians who are increasingly hostile to the message of the church. Ultimately these two groups will go their separate ways, and John’s Gospel will continue to be a document that defines the divide between them. John’s Gospel is filled with allusions meant to retain Jewish Christians in the first century, but also to condemn those who could not follow. It is the most troubling of the four Gospels in terms of Jewish-Christian relations, and must be read carefully for this reason.

The other theme that enters this Moses-Jesus-Superman jumble is the light. When Moses speaks to God on Sinai his face becomes so radiant with reflected light that he frightens Aaron and the others. His face is so radiant that he must wear a veil to cover it, a veil that he begins to wear in God’s presence as well. If you are a student of John this can only lead you to his famous prologue in chapter one:

In Him was life, and the life was the Light of all people. The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has never overcome it.

If you are thinking to yourself “why does he quote that passage so often?” then I will tell you. The prologue, the first 14 verses the first chapter, is the key to understanding John’s entire Gospel. It is the “rosetta stone” that allows us to interpret the rest of the story. Here is a little more of the prologue:

The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world. He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him.

Now jump ahead to our chapter (three) and listen to the way Nicodemus enters the story, and the way our passage today began:

After dark one evening, a Jewish religious leader named Nicodemus, a Pharisee, came to speak with Jesus.

It is no accident that Nicodemus appears in the dark. He comes to Jesus under the cover of darkness (it is already dangerous for a religious leader to speak to Jesus) and his quite literally in the dark about the meaning and purpose of Jesus’ teaching. The other notable part of this exchange is the question “what do you mean?” It passes the lips of Nicodemus twice in five verses, and is clearly meant to cast him in the role of someone lost and in need of the light of understanding.

The climax of this exchange, the reason Nicodemus enters the narrative, and the message that Jesus wants to leave with both hearer and reader is this:

The light from heaven came into the world, but they loved the darkness more than the light, for their actions were evil. They hate the light because they want to sin in the darkness. They stay away from the light for fear their sins will be exposed and they will be punished. But those who do what is right come to the light gladly, so everyone can see that they are doing what God wants.

This Jesus is a little harder to love. I have to say I much prefer the forgiving Jesus, the “consider the lilies” Jesus, the eating and drinking Jesus, the healing Jesus, even the cryptic and hard to understand Jesus. Judgmental Jesus, the Jesus that explains the nature of human sinfulness, is more difficult. And whenever I’m challenged by some aspect of Jesus and try to put it into context, I go back to the prologue. “He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him,” John said. We did not receive him, or at least not in his more unsettling ways of being, because we couldn’t bear his light.

Everyone in this sermon—Jesus, Moses and Superman—is about the business of confronting evil. Each must develop a self-understanding that permits them to confront evil in their context. Each must name the evil in the hope that others will see it too. Where they stand apart, in is in the way evil is confronted. Moses/Superman will follow the path of the miraculous sign and the mighty act. Jesus will choose the cross. And this is where we begin to stumble. God demonstrated powerful acts in human history, a limitless capacity to defend his people. How does the cross fit this picture?

When the sky was darkened, when the earth shook, when Jesus breathed his last human breath, the light was momentarily veiled. The light was nearly extinguished, but “the darkness will never overcome it.” The cross is the mysterious way that God now confronts evil, it is the way of sacrifice and self-denial, it is a way apart from the way of the world. Our work, is to see the sense in God’s new way, to reject that power must meet power, and find God in those that suffer. We find God there, and we find ourselves, and we find the light. Amen.

PRAYERS OF THE PEOPLE

God, giver of all good,
you continually pour your benefits upon us.
Age after age the living wait upon you and find
that your faithfulness has no end,
and that your care is unfailing.
We praise you that the mystery of life
is a mystery of infinite goodness.
We praise you
for the order and constancy of nature;
for the beauty and bounty of the earth;
for day and night, summer and winter,
seedtime and harvest;
for the varied gifts of loveliness which every season brings.
We give you thanks
for all the comfort and joy of life,
for our homes, for our friends,
and for all the love, sympathy,
and goodwill of all people.

God, giver of all comfort,
you meet us where we are
and send us what we need:
courage and strength,
hope and healing,
and a sense of your abiding presence.
We praise you for companions on this journey,
for kindness extended and care given,
for elders and friends,
makers and servers,
planners and builders,
for doers and those who can simply be,
and visionaries in every generation.
We give you thanks that you have entrusted us
with 200 years on this corner.
We stand on the shoulders of giants:
Indigenous peoples,
tending this land for countless generations,
the first to understand the blessing of river and trail.
For settlers and pioneers,
for circuit riders and lay preachers,
for elders and teachers,
bringing the Wesleyan message to this community,
in sermon, lesson, and song.
For those who worked for the betterment of the human condition,
and those who sought a better community and nation,
addressing poverty and injustice,
inequality and the rights of the vulnerable.

God, giver of all blessings,
for the mission and ministry that you made:
Spirit-formed and Spirit-led,
blessed by companions and friends
from Elverston-Trethewey, Mount Dennis,
Westminster, and the many congregations
that sent us your faithful ones through the years.
We give you thanks, O God,
for ten thousand Sundays on this corner,
for prayer and praise,
for songs to comfort and bless,
and for your Word, guiding us still.
We pray in the name of Jesus the Christ. Amen.

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: “May the God of hope go with us”

May the God of hope go with us every day,
filling all our lives with love and joy and peace.
May the God of justice speed us on our way,
bringing light and hope to every land and race.
Praying, let us work for peace,
singing, share our joy with all,
working for a world that’s new,
faithful when we hear Christ’s call.

May the God of healing free the earth from fear,
freeing us for peace, both treasured and pursued.
May the God of love keep our commitment clear
to a world restored, to human life renewed. R (twice)

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.