SERMON OUTLINE 1
Theme: Choosing the Good We’ll Do
Scripture: Hebrews 13:1-2, 5-6, 16 (NRSV)
Let mutual love continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it. Keep your lives free from the love of money, and be content with what you have; for he has said, “I will never leave you or forsake you.” So we can say with confidence,
“The Lord is my helper;
I will not be afraid;
What can anyone do to me?”
Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.
Concept
“Let mutual love continue. Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have.” Christians are oriented to doing good and to showing love. We energetically care for shut-ins, cook bereavement meals for grieving families, volunteer in our children’s schools and youth groups, provide helping hands in domestic violence shelters and soup kitchens, write letters to our legislators, send mission teams out to build homes and teach Bible schools. Sometimes there is so much good we want to do, so many opportunities for doing good, that we are stymied about which good thing to do. Like a deer caught in the headlights, we stand still, unsure which option to pursue. Perhaps that is why the writer in Hebrews prods us back into action, back into what our hearts desire, by reminding us, “Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have.”
Jesus understood the human condition and gives us another chance when we neglect to
do good. In the Garden of Gethsemane, he instructed his disciples to keep awake while he wrestled deeply in prayer. He needed their active presence. But, he came back from praying to find them fast asleep. He woke them, commenting, “The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” (Mark 14:32-38) Jesus understands that sometimes we don’t carry through with what we really want to do. Jesus gave the disciples another chance to be present with him in his suffering.
So Jesus gives us another chance to be present with him, in the lives of his brothers and sisters of today. Each year we take the Week of Compassion offering. Annually, we are given the chance to be present with God’s children, to share God’s concern for them by getting them the help they urgently need. As God has given us multiple “other chances,” so we help others have another chance for a healthy, educated, positive life. And why do we choose to give to Week of Compassion, when a number of organizations address disaster relief, worldwide poverty, hunger, and development? Because through Week of Compassion, we send our help specifically in Jesus’ name. We share not only the material goods that people need to sustain life, but enrich those lives because the recipients know the help comes from the Church. What a reminder that they are not alone, that “The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid!”
(Hebrews 13:6)
LITURGY 2 (with communion): Like a Spring
Call to Worship
Leader Holy God, we come to worship.
People We delight in drawing near to you.
Leader We bring offerings of praise.
People We long to please you.
Leader Make our sacrifices acceptable in your sight.
All Show us the way you would have us go.
Opening Prayer
Holy and gracious God, we welcome this new day and this hour — a moment to refresh our spirits in your house and at your table, an hour to celebrate your love and generosity to us. Open our hearts and our ears, that we may hear your message for our lives. Open our eyes
and our lives, so that we may better reflect you in the world beyond these walls. Amen.
Prayer of Confession
Leader Loving and patient God, we come to you with troubled hearts.
People We’ve quarreled and blamed and sought advantage over others.
Leader Our consciences are guilty, too.
People We’ve treated others unfairly and neglected to do good.
Leader Our hands aren’t so clean, either.
People We have held tightly to our resources and failed to share our blessings.
Leader We have forgotten whose we are, and who we represent.
All Grant us the blessing of forgiveness and the grace to move forward on a new and righteous path.
Words of Assurance
Leader Children of God! You shall call and God will answer!
People We are forgiven. A new path awaits!
Leader Listen for the voice of God, for God will guide you continually.
All We will listen. We will follow.
Litany
Leader We’ve been busy at worship, Bible study, and church meetings.
People But is this the sacrifice that God desires?
Leader Then what is the right thing to do? How should we praise God?
People Get rid of unfair practices! Fight for the oppressed! Cancel debts!
Leader But we obey the letter of the law.
People Do you share your food with the hungry? Open your home to the homeless? Help someone pay their electric bill?
Leader But I put something in the plate each Sunday…
People Be generous with those in need. Speak out on their behalf. Take action to reflect God in the world.
Leader And that will please God?
All Then your light shall break forth like the dawn. You shall be like a spring of water, whose waters never fail.
Invitation to Communion
As we prepare to approach Christ’s table, to share in the feast of the people of God, let us stop for a moment to remember other feasts Jesus celebrated —
• the feast at the wedding in Cana, where Jesus turned water not only into wine, but into the best wine offered by the host
• the feast of the loaves and fishes, where a few shared and all went away full
• the meal from wheat gleaned on the Sabbath; the festive dinner in the home of Lazarus, Mary and Martha; the breakfast on the shore of the Galilee after his resurrection
When Jesus was around, no one went hungry. So, as we remember the feast in the Upper Room, let us also remember our responsibility to act on behalf of the one who died for us —
the one who calls us to go into the world to heal the sick, house the homeless, feed the poor, and fight for release of the oppressed.
Communion prayer
Gracious God, you have been generous to us. Even when we suffer and feel stretched, we know we are far better off than many who share this world with us. Give us hearts so full with remembrance of your blessings that they spill over in the desire to share our bounty. Help us remember more often our abundance than our lack, and open our eyes to those who need our kindness. Let this feast nourish us to be Christ in the world.
Invitation to the Offering
A spring of water, whose waters never fail, gives freely — bubbling over in its abundance
and knowledge that God’s gifts will never run dry. In the spirit of that spring, let us bring our offerings — giving not just out of our own excess, but out of our first fruits. Let us return our gifts to the source, who promises to bless and multiply them to enable us to bring help and healing to a hurting world.
Dedicatory Prayer
Generous and loving God, we thank you for the resources you have entrusted to us, and we return to you a portion of those gifts to further your work in the world. Join our gifts with others, bless and multiply them, so that all of your children may live in health and safety, rejoicing in each new day and sharing what they have to make our world look more like the world you desire.
Charge and Benediction
Jesus has left the building! Follow him into the world, bringing light where there is darkness, offering water where there is thirst, serving food where there is hunger, struggling for freedom where there is oppression. Rejoice in your blessings, and do not neglect to do good and to share what you have.
SERMON OUTLINE 2
Theme: WWGD — What Would God Do?
Scripture: Isaiah 58:1-12 (NRSV)
Shout out, do not hold back! Lift up your voice like a trumpet! Announce to my people their rebellion, to the house of Jacob their sins. Yet day after day they seek me and delight to know my ways, as if they were a nation that practiced righteousness and did not forsake the ordinance of their God; they ask of me righteous judgments, they delight to draw near to God.
“Why do we fast, but you do not see? Why humble ourselves, but you do not notice?” Look, you serve your own interest on your fast day, and oppress all your workers. Look, you fast only to quarrel and to fight and to strike with a wicked fist. Such fasting as you do today will not make your voice heard on high. Is such the fast that I choose, a day to humble oneself? Is it to bow down the head like a bulrush, and to lie in sackcloth and ashes? Will you call this a fast, a day acceptable to the Lord? Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin?
Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up quickly; your vindicator shall go before you, the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard. Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer; you shall cry for help, and he will say, Here I am. If you remove the yoke from among you, the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil, if you offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your light shall rise in the darkness and your gloom be like the noonday. The Lord will guide you continually, and satisfy your needs in parched places, and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters never fail. Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt; you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; you shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to live in. Note: The Message offers a helpful interpretation/translation of this passage.
Concept
Despite the ancient similes, this passage rings with a powerfully relevant message. The prophet reminds us how we go to church and seek God’s blessing, yet we fail to fight against the injustice we see, hear or read about every day. The prophet cries out that the honor and sacrifice God desires is not sackcloth-and-ashes, but a life of action: fighting on behalf of the oppressed, feeding the hungry, helping the poor.
And God honors that action. In the beautiful passage of reward, God promises help to the giver. But perhaps even more compelling is the change God grants in the giver. S/he will become a beaming bearer of light, a nourished and nourishing garden, a spring of life-giving water ‘whose waters never fail.’
Doing good and sharing what we have must be more than a Christian “task” if we are to please the God we worship. Only in a life of action on behalf of others can we reflect our God in the world — a reflection that delights God far more than all the words our lips can utter.
