Living Offerings, Pentecost 12, August 27, 2017

Twelfth Sunday of Pentecost (Year A)

Sunday, August 27, 2017

So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.

– Romans 12:1-2 (The Message)

Theme: Living Offerings

Reflection: Can you picture it? Jesus and the disciples arrived at Caesarea Philippi, one of the cities named for Caesar. And before they can look for a place to rest, a place to wipe the dust from their feet and get something to eat, Jesus asks them who people would say the Son of Man is.

Peter stayed back from the rest of the disciples. He wasn’t sure what Jesus expected from the question. He wasn’t one to play guessing games, tossing out a name to see if it pleased Jesus. But the other disciples named all the usual suspects. Good, Peter thought. Glad that’s over.

Jesus looked around, and briefly their eyes met. “OK, but who do you say that I am?”

Perhaps you’ve had that moment. You never intended to say a word. But suddenly, the words leave your lips, said aloud before you can contain them.

It was June 2016, and I was leading my first worship service at Windhaven Psychiatric Hospital. I had prayed in my car, prior to going inside, for the right words to give the clients comfort and hope. And the service had gone fine. Just a few more minutes and it would be over.

“Before I say the closing prayer, if there is anyone who would like individual prayer, I will stay around after we finish.” The words left my mouth before I could retrieve them.

“What did you say?” the scolding voice in my head responded immediately. “You know nothing about praying with people for their needs. Why would you offer that? Relax though. Probably no one will respond.”

But all four hospital participants stayed. And somehow, God put the words in my mouth, gave voice to the pains in their bodies, in their hearts and in their lives. I asked God to step in with answers, with healing, with new starts. They wept. I wept. It was, without question, the most profound experience I ever felt. Something beyond me stepped in and spoke words they needed to hear.

Perhaps that’s how Peter felt when Jesus asked his question. The disciples were quiet. Then Peter’s voice came out: “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”

The next moments were a blur as Jesus called him blessed, said he was the rock on which the church would be built. All he remembered for sure was that the words didn’t feel like his, and Jesus saying that the revelation had come from God.

Peter may have felt a bit like Abraham and Sarah, just two ordinary seniors, chosen for a holy task. Nothing they had done to cause it. They were simply blessed, open to God working within them. As the Psalmist writes, “On the day I called, you answered me, you increased my strength of soul.”

On that Sunday morning, God increased my strength of soul, revealed to me a gift I had no idea existed, the gift of encouragement, of intercessory prayer. What, I wondered, were the gifts in these people I was praying for, and in the people around me?

(You always are welcome to respond with your thoughts and reflections in the comments section at the bottom of this post.) 

Faith App:  For Peter, proclaiming was the obvious gift. For most of us, it takes years to discover what gifts we have. Just practice what comes naturally: teaching, encouragement, ministering, compassion, or hearing God’s word and sharing it.

HYMN/SONG SUGGESTIONS

Take My Life, that I May Be, ELW 583/685

Built on a Rock, ELW 652

Change My Heart, O God, ELW 801

Christ Is Made the Sure Foundation, ELW 645

We Are an Offering, ELW 692

The Son of God, Our Christ, ELW 584

Lifesong, Casting Crowns

Live Like That, Sidewalk Prophets

You Are, I Am, MercyMe

Let Them See You, Colton Dixon

LESSONS

Isaiah 51:1-6 Starting with Abraham and Sarah, blessings for God’s people continue

Psalm 138 On the day I called, you answered me, you increased my strength of soul.

Romans 12:1-8 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed.

Matthew 16:13-20 He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?”

Summary: All the things we do or say in faith are gifts from God, so boldly be a living offering. So, like Peter, when we speak out and name Jesus as our Lord and Savior, it is not us confessing it, but God speaking through us. Don’t worry about the size of your gift – God dug us from clay and rock.

OPENING LITANY based on Psalm 138

L:  Thank you, thank you, God, from the bottom of my heart;

C:  You are the Lord, above everything, and I proclaim that!

L:  When I was hopeless, I called on you, and you answered me;

L:  Because you have been faithful forever, I praise your name!

L:  Leaders of earth, take a lesson, and praise Sovereign God;

C:  Listen up: take notes on using your power wisely and well.

L:  The Lord is glorious and mighty, far above earth’s kingdoms –

C:  God overlooks the proud and cares for the little and lowest.

L:  When I’m lost and life’s storms are raging, the Lord protects me;

C:  Reaches out to rescue me and put me on solid ground again.

L:  I’m still learning what my steadfast Lord has in store for me;

C:  But I trust the one who made me will keep shaping my life.

CONFESSION

L:  Lord, we try, but what you’re asking is beyond us;

C:  Every day, the world tells us we have to be the best,

L:  When you tell us not to think too highly of ourselves.

C:  Forgive us for living conformed rather than transformed.

L:  Lord, really, why did you give everyone different skills?

C:  The ministers, leaders, teachers and givers do your work,

L:  But the world walks over the diligent, merciful and kind.

C:  Forgive us when we can’t see your blessings in our gifts.

L:  And Lord, why would you ask for us as living offerings?

C:  Every Sunday we worship with joy, giving it our best.

L:  If the world wants to see you, they should come inside.

C:  Forgive us for forgetting the world sees you through us.

(Silent reflection)

L:  In our confession, we pray together,

C:  Most Merciful God … we are your people, living in this world, but not of it. But it’s so easy to slide into this world’s words, actions and values. And before long, we are no longer set apart, but blended in, conformed to the world. Help us to remain boldly set apart, that our lives would proclaim you as Lord.

Hear this Good News: When we call, our Lord promises to answer us, and increases in us the strength of our souls, strengthens us in faith to declare “You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God.” By the great love of this Messiah, Jesus, you are set free from all that would keep you silent and captive to sin. You are forgiven, in the name of…

Amen

PRAYER OF THE DAY

L:  We pray together, 

C:  Steadfast God … we pray that you would give us the faith to become living offerings, using our gifts to speak out and proclaim you boldly. Keep reminding us not to conform to the world, but to be transformed by your love and mercy, and show that same love and mercy to others. Amen.

COMMUNION BLESSING

L:  We pray together,

C:  We give you thanks, most gracious God, for the transformation in this bread, the bold proclamation in this cup. Send us, as living offerings, giving ourselves to this world so that everyone will know by our lives the love and mercy of Jesus, the Messiah, Son of the living God.  Amen.

SENDING

L:  In our one body, we have many members,

C:  Many members, all with different gifts,

L:  Blessings from God to build up the Church,

C:  Many different ways to share God’s love.

L:  Go now, as living offerings, to love and to serve the Lord.

C: Thanks be to God!

First Reading Isaiah 51:1-6 (NRSV)

Setting the Scene: Isaiah looks back at some of the defining moments in his people’s history. Be patient, he says. You have a future.

51 Listen to me, you that pursue righteousness,
    you that seek the Lord.
Look to the rock from which you were hewn,
    and to the quarry from which you were dug.
² Look to Abraham your father
    and to Sarah who bore you;
for he was but one when I called him,
    but I blessed him and made him many.
³ For the Lord will comfort Zion;
    he will comfort all her waste places,
and will make her wilderness like Eden,
    her desert like the garden of the Lord;
joy and gladness will be found in her,
    thanksgiving and the voice of song.

⁴ Listen to me, my people,
    and give heed to me, my nation;
for a teaching will go out from me,
    and my justice for a light to the peoples.
⁵ I will bring near my deliverance swiftly,
    my salvation has gone out
    and my arms will rule the peoples;
the coastlands wait for me,
    and for my arm they hope.
⁶ Lift up your eyes to the heavens,
    and look at the earth beneath;
for the heavens will vanish like smoke,
    the earth will wear out like a garment,
    and those who live on it will die like gnats;
but my salvation will be forever,
    and my deliverance will never be ended.

Second Reading Romans 12:1-8 (NRSV)

Setting the Scene: Paul speaking to the Church in Rome, perhaps many house churches, returns to his own metaphor of the Church as a body with many parts, each with different functions.

12 I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. ² Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.

³ For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. ⁴ For as in one body we have many members, and not all the members have the same function, ⁵ so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another. ⁶ We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us: prophecy, in proportion to faith; ⁷ ministry, in ministering; the teacher, in teaching; ⁸ the exhorter, in exhortation; the giver, in generosity; the leader, in diligence; the compassionate, in cheerfulness.

Gospel Matthew 16:13-20 (NRSV)

Setting the Scene: Jesus waited until they entered the community named for Caesar before talking about identity. Under Roman occupation, the Jews were supposed to look to Caesar as the anointed one.

¹³ Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” ¹⁴ And they said, “Some say John the Baptist, but others Elijah, and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” ¹⁵ He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” ¹⁶ Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” ¹⁷ And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven. ¹⁸ And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. ¹⁹ I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” ²⁰ Then he sternly ordered the disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah.