Worship August 6, 2021
Let us worship!
I wait for the Lord,
My soul waits,
And in his word I hope;
My soul waits for the Lord
more than those who watch for the morning…
For with the Lord there is steadfast love,
and with God is great power to redeem.
— Adapted from Psalm 30
A prayer to center you
Holy God,
We are but human.
We lean toward the sins of this world.
We too often think only of ourselves and our loved ones.
Too often we see truth through the lens that we desire.
Too often we walk in bitterness, anger, and hurt.
Forgive us O God!
and help us to start anew,
to turn over the bitterness
to let go of the anger
to work towards healing the hurt.
Help us start anew….closer to you!
Speak to us now through this moment.
Wisper your words of healing and hope.
Grand us kindness towards ourselves and other.
Move us to tenderhearted actions and forgiveness,
as you have shown us love and forgiveness!
May we mirror your love and your light, now and always.
Amen
EPHESIANS CHAPTER 4
VERSE 25 THROUGH CHAPTER 5 VERSE 2
TWO TRANSLATIONS
THE NEW REVISED STANDARD VERSION (NRSV)
So then, putting away falsehood, let all of us speak the truth to our neighbors, for we are members of one another. Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not make room for the devil. Thieves must give up stealing; rather let them labor and work honestly with their own hands, so as to have something to share with the needy. Let no evil talk come out of your mouths, but only what is useful for building up, as there is need, so that your words may give grace to those who hear. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with which you were marked with a seal for the day of redemption. Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you. Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
THE MESSAGE TRANSLATION:
What this adds up to, then, is this: no more lies, no more pretense. Tell your neighbor the truth. In Christ’s body we’re all connected to each other, after all. When you lie to others, you end up lying to yourself.
Go ahead and be angry. You do well to be angry—but don’t use your anger as fuel for revenge. And don’t stay angry. Don’t go to bed angry. Don’t give the Devil that kind of foothold in your life.
Did you use to make ends meet by stealing? Well, no more! Get an honest job so that you can help others who can’t work.
Watch the way you talk. Let nothing foul or dirty come out of your mouth. Say only what helps, each word a gift.
Don’t grieve God. Don’t break his heart. His Holy Spirit, moving and breathing in you, is the most intimate part of your life, making you fit for himself. Don’t take such a gift for granted.
Make a clean break with all cutting, backbiting, profane talk. Be gentle with one another, sensitive. Forgive one another as quickly and thoroughly as God in Christ forgave you.
Watch what God does, and then you do it, like children who learn proper behavior from their parents. Mostly what God does is love you. Keep company with him and learn a life of love. Observe how Christ loved us. His love was not cautious but extravagant. He didn’t love in order to get something from us but to give everything of himself to us. Love like that.
Reflection:
Speaking truth these days, who knew it could be so hard? The truth seems so simple.
It has become hard partially because truth has become subjective and malleable. Gone are the days when the nightly news would share the facts. Gone are the days were things seemed clear and neat and tighty. (although you might question if those days really existed and if that was really the best way) Now a days the ‘truth’ comes at you from what feels like a million different directions, each with its own spin and interpretation. We get so much information from sources that have their own agenda or atleast their own lens through which they have shared the information. Between news media and social media and good old water cooler conversations there are truths and rumors and made-up information all rolled together until we can no longer decipher what is true and what is not. In today’s world the truth is hard to find, none the less to speak.
Of course, we are all drawn towards the sources that seem to align with our already standing beliefs. This makes our own version of the truth seem ultimate and correct. We lean towards conversation where we are right, no questions asked, no opposing position given—we don’t even expose ourselves to another viewpoint. Absolute on all issues. We tend to block out all other voices but the ones that agree with our own. We eliminate the conversation.
If we do somehow find ourselves in ‘mixed’ company, we too often live in fear of speaking our own truth, afraid we well offend those around us or cause a rift between friends or family. Since every issue seems to be divided into its own fractions, everything feels like a fight. Even the choice to get vaccinated or not has become a divided political position, with people almost ready to slug it out even over the conversation. There seems to exist little ground for open conversations or open exchanges of ideas. We dig in too fast. Our world has become too divided, too black and white, too left and right. There is not much middle ground left. We tend to skip over open mindedness and in so doing we cut off the opportunity to really hear one another. We eliminate the chance to give grace, to find new understandings, to be kind to others and to give and receive forgiveness. We too often let the worries of discord mute our voice, silence the stirring of God’s word within us, quite our own voice from speaking our interpretation given by the Holy Spirit.
Too often we shut down when face a dissenting opinion instead of speaking out of grace and love and forgiveness. Instead of opening our hearts and minds to conversations and where the Spirit can lead through those, we simply want validation of our own thoughts and ideas.
God, however, calls us to more. God calls us to think with our own minds, to listen to the Spirit moving in and through us and to be moved through study and conversations with others (those who agree with us and those that don’t). God can use us to spread God’s words of grace to those around us. God can use us to live in love and show others how to live in grace and compassion. If we lay down our own need to fight, if we set aside our absolute need to be right and we open ourselves us to listen to God’s calling for us, we can become imitators of God, being kind even when we don’t agree, speaking our truth in peace, hoping to show God’s grace and love to others and, in so doing, hopefully moving this world a little closer to God’s kingdom.
Thinking it through…
What conversations have been hard to have with other people?
What has your inner self really want to say to someone, but was too scared to say?
What issues do you seem to avoid in conversation, but feel like deep down they need to be discussed?
What is holding you back?
What would help you have these conversations?
How would speaking this truth change the situation? How would it change you? How could it change the other person?
Word in action
Take a moment and ask God what hard conversation you need to address that you have been putting off.
Write down the main point that you want to get across.
Imagine that you enter that hard conversation.
Walk through the conversation in your head, taking deep breaths and opening yourself up to hearing the other person while still sticking to your main point.
See in your mind what giving grace looks like in this conversation, what being kind looks like and what being willing to forgive looks like.
Walk through this in your head until you feel that you are ready.
Go have that hard truth conversation you have been putting side.
Prayer of sending
Holy God,
Filled with your courage and strength
may we go from this time giving grace when we can,
being kind to those around us
and forgiving as we have been forgiven.
Amen
Going out.
Go out into the world, renewed and revived by the word of God.
and in all that you do, may the love of Christ Jesus uphold you,
the peace of God sustain you and may the Holy Spirit guide you each step of the way
Let all God’s people say: AMEN
