Worship September 18, 2021
Let us worship!
We come to worship
Broken and less than
We come to worship
With heavy burdens and heavy hearts
We come to worship
Seeking and hoping
We come to worship
To worship a risen Lord
A prayer to center you
God of peace and hope,
We come this hour to draw nearer to you
Draw near to us
Help us to set aside the worries of the world and turn our hearts to you
May your Spirit calm our minds and souls and open us to your Holy Word
In seeking time with you, may we find strength and courage to face the week ahead
May you speak a new to us through this ancient text that we may move forward into the week ahead carrying with us your peace, compassion and love.
Amen
Holy Scripture
James, CHAPTER 3, VERSE 13 THROUGH CHAPTER 4 VERSE 3 AND 7-8
Two Kinds of Wisdom
13 Who is wise and understanding among you? Show by your good life that your works are done with gentleness born of wisdom. 14 But if you have bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not be boastful and false to the truth. 15 Such wisdom does not come down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, devilish. 16 For where there is envy and selfish ambition, there will also be disorder and wickedness of every kind. 17 But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy. 18 And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace for those who make peace.
4 Those conflicts and disputes among you, where do they come from? Do they not come from your cravings that are at war within you? 2 You want something and do not have it; so you commit murder. And you covet something and cannot obtain it; so you engage in disputes and conflicts. You do not have, because you do not ask. 3 You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, in order to spend what you get on your pleasures.
7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8 Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
Reflection:
My husband and I have been married for over 16 years. We started dating in high school, so we have been together for nearly 24 years. We basically grew up together as we were 17 and 16 when we started dating. I love him dearly and we are great partners in life. When I brought him home to my parents, way back in the day, they were afraid to say anything because he was a huge step up (in their opinion and obviously in mine) from the other boys I had brought home. They didn’t want to jinx it.
My husband and I have built a wonderful life together and he is the best life partner that I could have ever prayed for. God has truly blessed me. We complement each other well. His organization to my chaos, somehow it works (most of the time). His love of structure to my ability to go with the flow, it balances out. His lists to my throw it together attitude, well we are still married…
I am not going to lie; marriage is not always easy. When I am doing pre-marriage counseling with young couples, I tell them that the first year is HARD. Having to humble oneself, as you must do in marriage, is hard. We spend our lives learning how to take care of ourselves and be independent. We make decisions for our own best interest when we are in our late teens and early twenties, post high school and pre marriage. We have our own best interest at heart. We choose jobs and schools according to only our own desire. We even pick what we eat based only on what we alone want to eat. Big and small choices are all about us. When we enter a long time committed relationship, that prospective must shift. For relationships to work, we must move from a ‘best for me’ to a ‘best for us’ mentality. What is best for us might not be what is best for me. It is not an easy shift. Learning to balance our own needs and desires with those of others in a non-selfish way is hard. But when we put gentleness and compassion first, relationships have room to thrive.
The shift from selfish ambition to a peaceable, pure, gentle, willing to yield attitude is hard to make in marriage and in life in general. It is so counter cultural. Finding the gentleness that comes from wisdom that James talks about is a daily struggle. We are called to live in this space of peaceful ability to yield out of a loving spirit of Christ. Putting the good of others above our own selfish ambitions is not always easy. We live in a world that encourages us to put ourselves first in all situations. Selfish ambition has become away of functioning in the world. But James tells us very clearly that envy, selfish ambition, and boastful behavior leads to disorder and wickedness.
Time and time again we have seen this hold true. When we put ourselves before the good of the whole, when we put ego above other, chaos breaks out. We see it in the unwillingness to wear masks or get vaccines. We see it when we shut ourselves off from people of color who are calling for movement towards racial equality and peace. We see it as we allow laws to be passed that hurt the LQBTQ+ community. When we do not stand up for the up injustices around us. It feels like the last few years of been a whirlwind of disorder and when we look at the cause it all stems from an unwillingness to open up to the other, an unwillingness to set our own selfish ambition aside to see what is wrong around us.
Whenever we put our own self-interest ahead of the needs of others, our own comfort before the safety of others, we do not represent Christ. We do not use heavenly wisdom. When people put themselves before anyone else we see rising disorder and descent to chaos. When we get wrapped up in what is best for us alone, when we dig our heels in and close down to conversation, when we close ourselves off to true wisdom and gentleness in God’s compassion, sin prevails. When we cut ourselves off to the spirit of Christ, we fall into wickedness and darkness. When we get carried away with selfish ambition, we become part of the wickedness of the world.
What a world this would be if we could love each other enough to put the good of the whole above our own best interested. We could all thrive. Society has built this false dichotomy where there is only enough good for the few, but the truth is, good is abundant, love is infinite, compassion can reach all. If we lift the least of those among us, we all will rise. Let us lift each other up and live into hope.
Thinking it through…
What stood out to you the most in this Scripture?
What area of your life feels most chaotic?
In what area of your life do you need to set your ego aside to make room for peace?
Word in action
Think of someone with whom you experience conflict.
Evaluate the source of the conflict through the lens of this Scripture.
Remember that not problems rest on your own shoulders, one must protect themselves from harmful relationships as well. We are not called to be punching bags.
What steps and actions can you take to remove the conflict from your life?
*Open yourself to hear with with understanding
*Set your personal ambition aside
*check to see if you are using pure intentions, Peaceable means, gentle spirit when you interact with them.
*What would help to yield good fruits and create peace
Prayer of repentance
Holy God,
You reach out to us with deep understanding of our short comings
Forgive our foolish hearts that seek our own selfish desires above your will and the wellbeing of those around us.
Too often we desire what we do not need.
We corrupt our relationships by letting envy seep around us.
You urge us to gentleness
But we linger in conflict.
You give us grace,
But we shut ourselves down and close our minds.
Move us towards righteousness, o gracious God.
Stir among us peace and let help us to set our ways aside that your glory may shine,
Now and always.
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
