Pentecost 23 – Oct. 31, 201

 Pentecost 23, Oct. 31, 2021(full size gallery)

We had 17 in the service and another 4 online. A beautiful fall day on what is known at Halloween. The light was gorgeous inside the church at different part of the end. Toward the end we had a stained glass image at the front.

The sermon used a metaphor of a blood drive emergency – time to give blood. The sermon transformed this to time to give love

“When God’s heart of love beats in our bodies, God is constantly pulling our depleted reserves of love into God’s heart, oxygenating our imperfect love with God’s holy love, and then pumping our restored love back out into us so that we can share God’s love in the world, clear in our minds and strong in God’s love. Keeping God’s heart of love healthy and beating in us requires care and tending.”

This includes reading and digesting scripture, exercise, prayer, and giving to our neighbor and ourselves. The sermon emphasized we often don’t do a great job with the latter

“Accepting God’s love for us and applying it to ourselves helps us to love God more fully and perfectly so that we can then love our neighbors as ourselves, loving them with God’s own holy love.”

November begins and so has the ECM challenge to provide food trough the Dept of Social Service to those in need. The Thanksgiving portion goes through Nov. 15 and then the Christmas one begins and concludes Dec. 15. They are encouraging $75 gifts.

Nov and Dec. will have fundraisers for the United Thank Offering and Giving Tuesday as well.


Lectionary review Pentecost 23, Oct. 31, 2021

By Chris Haslam

I. Theme –  God’s faithfulness to the Israelites and God’s faithfulness to us demands our loyalty and complete devotion, especially as it relates to knowing and living out the commandments of God. We need to communicate that we should love him undividedly, with all our faculties.

The lectionary readings are here  or individually:

Old Testament – Deuteronomy 6:1-9
Psalm – Psalm 119:1-8
Epistle – Hebrews 9:11-14
Gospel – Mark 12:28-34

Deuteronomy 6:1-9

Deuteronomy opens with the Israelites encamped just east of the Promised Land. For forty years, Israel wandered through the desert area south of the land of promise. Though at times to them it did not seem so, like a faithful mother, God was indeed with them; God never left them nor did God ever forsake them.

Deuteronomy documents and sets forth the formal covenant relationship between God and the Israelites after they conquered Canaan. In this exposition of the first commandment, Israel is expected to demonstrate utter loyalty and fidelity to the God of the Covenant, the Redeemer of Israel, the LORD.2 Covenant agreements were not new among middle-Eastern people of that time. These agreements were typically made between governments or individuals who lived in close relationship.

This generation of Israelites who now stand at the edge of the Promised Land never experienced the exodus from Egypt. Deuteronomy amplifies the previous accounts of the Law for them, expounding upon the implications of the historic agreement at Mount Sinai between God and Israel. The teaching, the understanding, the living out of the Ten Commandments was not new to this generation of Israelites. However, it seems that whenever God has something important to say, the theme is repeated by several biblical writers. It is as if God is using a yellow highlighter demanding attention be given to certain precepts again and again.

The commandment in verses 1-3 of chapter 6 seems to refer to the first of the Ten Commandments. To hear and observe are the basic requirements for blessing of the land by God. This generation of Israelites had seen and heard of the disobedience of their ancestors, which resulted in their death and failure to cross into the Promised Land. People, however, have short memories so here, more so than in chapter 5, Moses makes clear that if God is going to bless them, there must be reverent obedience from the youngest to the oldest, to all that the Lord commands.3

The rejection of polytheism by God’s people is seen throughout the Old Testament. God repeatedly demonstrates superiority to other claimants of deity. Because of these continuous demonstrations, God was clearly entitled to Israel’s exclusive worship, devotion, and obedience. That God alone is to receive their worship and praise is clearly established in verse 4. This call for Israel’s undivided loyalty to the Lord is called the “Shema,” after its first word in Hebrew, “hear” (“hear” is translated Shema): Hear O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. In early in Judaism, the Shema became a confession of faith, and in second century BCE, it was included with the Ten Commandments in the Nash papyrus, a liturgical text.4

Reciting the Shema expresses personal devotion to God and willingness on the part of the worshiper to accept responsibility for the ethical principles of the Law, both in the present as well as in the future, through religious instruction of one’s children.5 To this end, according to Jewish tradition, the Shema should be recited morning and evening as part of prayers, as well as on special occasions on the Jewish calendar.

The second great truth God wanted Israel to learn is found in verse 5, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and with all your might.” God expects love without limits, that is, love with our entire being, including our minds. Israel is commanded to absorb and inculcate into their children the great truths of God. Moses paints a picture of how closely they are to steward these truths. “Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise. Bind them as a sign on your hand, fix them as an emblem on your forehead, and write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates” (v. 7).

Stewarding God’s truths in this manner may seem extreme to some. Some may even be so bold as to say, “It doesn’t take all of that.” However, whether one takes literally or symbolically how continuously and intently we are to steward God’s truths, it is clear that God expects his truths to have a place of importance in the lives of those who claim him as sovereign. Perhaps if stewarding God’s truths in the manner commanded in Deuteronomy 6 were taught in more churches and homes, true devotion to God would be realized by so many more believers.

Challenge

God’s faithfulness to the Israelites and God’s faithfulness to us demands our loyalty and complete devotion, especially as it relates to knowing and living out the commandments of God. At all times, but especially in times of global turmoil, we need educated Christians who know the Word of God and can transmit it to others in words and deeds

Psalm 146

The psalmist will praise God throughout his life. We should not look to human leaders for security and help because they are finite: when they die, so do their “plans” (v. 4). (“Princes”, v. 3, are probably powerful and rich leaders rather than kings.) But God is to be trusted for he is creator, and maintains his pact with us forever; he is the guardian of moral order (vv. 5-6). He supports the disadvantaged: the hungry, the prisoner, the oppressed. (“Opens the eyes of the blind”, v. 8, per Isaiah 42:7, probably means frees captives.) He loves those who live in his ways (“the righteous”, v. 8) but works against the evil-doers. He cares for “strangers” (v. 9), aliens. He helps the exploited and status-less: “the orphan and the widow”. God rules eternally (unlike “princes”); he is Israel’s (“Jacob”, v. 5) in all ages.

Hebrews 9:11-14

Vv. 1-7 tell of temple practice in ancient Israel. The forerunner of the Temple was a “tent” (v. 2), called the “Holy Place”. Within this “tent” was a second one, called the “Holy of Holies” (v. 3), where God dwelt. On the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur), only the high priest went into “the second” tent (v. 7), to offer a sacrifice of animal blood for the redemption of unintentional sins. Annual repetition of this ritual shows that redemption from sin was of limited duration; that there were two tents shows that sacrifices could not remove the inner guilt (“perfect the conscience”, v. 9) of the faithful.

In somewhat like manner, when Christ came the first time, to redeem us of our sin, he passed through his risen body (the equivalent of the outer tent) into “the Holy Place” (v. 12, which must be the Holy of Holies, i.e. heaven). The blood in his saving act was his own (in crucifixion), not animal blood; therefore the redemption it achieved is forever. In the Temple, “ashes of a heifer” (v. 13) were mixed with water and used to purify the flesh, i.e. restore the ritual purity, of those who had touched the dead. If the high priest was able to achieve this, how much greater will be the effect of Jesus’ “blood” (v. 14), his sacrifice of his sinless self, in removing all traces of guilt for our past ungodly (“dead”) deeds enabling us to “worship the living God”. (His “eternal Spirit” is probably his spirit of self-offering.)

Mark 12:28-34

Some religious leaders have asked Jesus questions about issues central to Jewish thinking, trying to trap him:

Will he state publicly that his authority is from God? Should a Jew pay poll taxes to Caesar? He has avoided entrapment in both cases.

Now, in Mark, a scribe asks a question to learn rather than to entrap. There were 613 precepts in Jewish law. Which is the most important? Jesus offers two, not one; the first is the shema (“Hear, …”, v. 29), recited twice daily by pious Jews. He links a second to the first: love your neighbor, whoever he is, as you do yourself (v. 31). Jesus combines these two precepts into a moral principle, linked by love. The scribe agrees and elaborates (vv. 32-33): there being only one God, we should love him undividedly, with all our faculties. Both precepts are “much more important” than temple-based religion. Jesus tells him that he is now almost ready for the coming kingdom of God.