COMMUNITY CHURCH OF THE MONTEREY PENINSULA
P. O. BOX 222811
CARMEL CA 93922
(831) 624-8595
www.ccmp.org
Rev. Paul Wrightman, Pastor
Independent and United Church of Christ
March 7, 2021
Dear Friends,
Our new website is nearing completion! Helmut Schonwalder, the person in charge of creating it, is asking for your favorite pictures of people and events to make it more personal and to add more interest. Please send them to me in the form of email attachments. My email address is paulccmp@yahoo.com. And check out the new website at WELCOME FRIENDS to PRAY WITH US!
The GivingTree Benefit Shop is open again! Stop by on Thursdays and Fridays from 1-4. They currently have a huge selection of items in all categories. They could also use more volunteers.
Your Board of Governors is making plans for reopening the church for worship and reopening our facilities for our renters. This will not happen overnight, but will definitely happen within the next few months. . . Stay tuned to this channel for regular updates on our progress!
We had a very positive and uplifting Quarterly Church Family gathering via Zoom last Sunday. A big THANK YOU to Jon Close, our new President for leading the meeting, which required extensive Zoom training beforehand, and which went smooth as silk.
St. Mary’s food bank in Pacific Grove very much needs us to keep on donating non-perishable food items. You can drop them off at the church office.
Stay Safe, Take Care,
And Always Remember that Jesus IS Emmanuel – God WITH Us! Pastor Paul
WORSHIP SERVICE FOR MARCH 7, 2021
INTRODUCTORY READING: A MEDLEY OF READINGS ON SERVICE
Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my spirit upon him. –Isaiah 42:1
In Jesus the service of God and the service of the least of the brethren were one.
--Dietrich Bonhoeffer
The giving of self to the service of God is not like making a single offer, handing over a single gift, receiving a single acknowledgement. It is a continued action, renewed all the time. –Hubert van Zeller
When a man turns to Him, desiring to serve Him, God directs his attention to the world and its need. It is His will that our service of Him should be expressed as our service to the world, through Him, and for His sake. –Emil Brunner
Everybody can be great. Because anybody can serve. You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t have to make your subject and your verb agree to serve. You don’t have to know about Plato and Aristotle to serve. You don’t have to know Einstein’s theory of relativity to serve. You don’t have to know the second theory of thermo-dynamics to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love. –Martin Luther King
SUGGESTED MUSIC: Awake, Awake to Love and Work
SHELTERED DALE – AWAKE, AWAKE TO LOVE AND WORK
mkariobangi You Tube
OPENING PRAYER: Janet Morley, Contemporary
Holy God, whose name is not honored
where the needy are not served,
and the powerless are treated with contempt:
may we embrace our neighbor
with the same tenderness
that we ourselves require;
so that your justice may be fulfilled in love,
through Jesus Christ.
Amen.
LORD’S PRAYER
Our Father,
who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come.
Thy will be done on earth
as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those
who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom,
and the power, and the glory,
for ever and ever.
Amen.
SCRIPTURE: John 13:1, 3-8, 12-17
Now before the festival of the Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, got up from the table, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around him. He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, ‘Lord, are you going to wash my feet?’ Jesus answered, ‘You do not know now what I am doing, but later you will understand.’ Peter said to him, ‘You will never wash my feet.’ Jesus answered, ‘Unless I wash you, you have no share with me.’
After he had washed their feet, had put on his robe, and had returned to the table, he said to them, ‘Do you know what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord – and you are right, for that is what I am. So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you. Very truly, I tell you, servants are not greater than their master, nor are messengers greater than the one who sent them. If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them.
SERMON: SETTING THE STAGE FOR THE LAST SUPPER
Rev. Paul Wrightman
(The underlining indicates what I would emphasize if delivered orally.)
Our Scripture text describes another episode from the Gospel of John that John hopes we will place ourselves in and take to heart. Peter is embarrassed by Jesus, which brings up the question of how we ourselves would have reacted if we had been there. What about Jesus embarrasses you? Though not an easy question to ask or answer, it is a crucial question to wrestle with if we are ever to move beyond our embarrassment and into the realm of mature disciples.
Looking at the four Gospels as a whole, it is easy to see that the different authors chose to emphasize different things. From a large amount of material, both oral and written, that was circulating before the Gospels were written, each author chose to include certain things and leave out others.
There is also a strong tradition from the earliest church that the Gospel of John reflects a real connection with the apostle John, one of the twelve original disciples. We know that the Gospel of John was the last Gospel to be written, and that it was probably written at least twenty years after the others, between 90 and 100 CE.
While Matthew, Mark, and Luke all chose to emphasize the dimension of the last supper that we have come to know as Communion, John chooses to talk about the foot-washing that happened immediately before the supper. It is as if John had before him the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, noticed that none of them mentioned the foot-washing, and decided to highlight this event in his own account.
Often it is helpful to compare the slightly different accounts of the same event in all four Gospels in order to come up with a more complete picture of what really happened. Thus, in terms of today’s text from John, it is helpful to note that Luke mentions an altercation that took place among the disciples in the context of the last supper.
Luke tells us that “A dispute also arose among them as to which one of them was to be regarded as the greatest” (Luke 22:24). This was not the first time that we find the disciples arguing about who was number one, but it was certainly the most shameful, occurring as it does on the occasion of Jesus’ last meal with his disciples, a meal which Jesus turned into a perpetual commemoration of his ultimate act of giving.
Biblical scholar William Barclay writes of the disciples:
“It may well be that on the night of this last meal together they had got themselves into such a state of competitive pride that not one of them would accept the duty of seeing that the water and the towels were there to wash the feet of the company as they came in; and that Jesus mended their omission in the most vivid and dramatic way.”
John, whom we know lived into his nineties, spent most of his long life meditating on the inner significance of what Jesus taught and did. He gives us his own commentary, as it were, on what was going on in Jesus’ mind immediately before he washed the feet of his disciples.
John tells us that Jesus, “knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, got up from the table, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around him” (John 13:3-5).
John’s commentary makes an extraordinary connection between Jesus having all God’s power at his disposal, and his choosing to manifest this power in a humble act of love for his disciples. We have here an incredible example of God’s mighty power expressing itself in the humblest of ways; we have here a parable-in-action, an acted-out teaching, of how gentle, loving, and nonviolent God really is. Jesus is teaching us that the power of God expresses itself most powerfully in acts of loving service.
Peter, true to form, balks at the thought of Jesus washing feet. Just as he could not accept the thought of Jesus expressing his messiahship through suffering, so too he cannot bear the thought of the Messiah being a servant. This combination, Jesus the Messiah being a suffering servant, is more than Peter can bear, and at first he refuses.
What is it, really, that Peter is embarrassed about? Surely it’s more than having dirty feet!
I suspect that Peter is really embarrassed about Jesus, embarrassed about being the follower of a Messiah whom he knew had all the power of an earthy king, but refused to use it like an earthly king; embarrassed about being the follower of a Messiah whom he knew had all the power of an earthly king, and was kneeling at his feet with basin and towel.
What is Peter embarrassed about? I suspect he’s beginning to realize that Jesus is actually going to go through with this suffering servant business to the bitter end, and that he, Peter, is going to be connected to a Messiah who is not a victorious warrior-king, but a humble suffering servant.
What is Peter embarrassed about? I suspect that he is beginning to realize that Jesus is telling him that as a disciple of his, he, Peter, is going to have to learn to be a humble servant himself.
Peter, James, and John, the three disciples closest to Jesus, have all had visions of grandeur, how they are going to be Jesus’ right-hand men in the great new empire that Jesus is going to inaugurate as soon as he defeats the hated Romans. All three, I suspect, are beginning to get the picture that Jesus’ great new empire, what Jesus calls the “kingdom of God,” is going to be an empire of servants and not of conquerors.
After washing the disciples’ feet, Jesus takes the opportunity to do some teaching. The apostle John still remembers Jesus’ words, and makes sure that they make it into his Gospel.
Sure enough, their worst fears at the time were realized: Jesus comes right out and challenges each of the disciples to be a servant in the same way that he is a servant.
At the time of the last supper the disciples just didn’t get it, and I suspect that if we had been there we would not have gotten it either. It was just too big a stretch to move from one’s ingrained expectations of a Messiah who would be a victorious warrior-king to a Messiah who redefined the word to mean a humble suffering servant.
Even after the surprise of the Resurrection – which was God’s way of telling the disciples that Jesus had been right all along – they still didn’t get it!
We are told in the book of Acts that just before Jesus’ Ascension, when all the disciples were gathered together, their burning question to the resurrected Jesus was: “Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?” (Acts 1:6)
It was not until the disciples were filled with the power of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost that they finally got it. And what was it that they got?
Through the Spirit of God’s nonviolent love, they finally understood the connection that Jesus was making between God and himself, and between himself and his disciples. The disciples finally began to understand the reality that God is all about love and compassion and forgiveness and not about military power and getting even.
Through God’s love and compassion and forgiveness of them, they finally began to realize that the only way to communicate the reality of this God to others was through their own Spirit-inspired love, forgiveness, and compassion.
I suspect that you and I are embarrassed at precisely the same things that Peter was embarrassed about. We’re embarrassed at being connected to a Messiah who has definitively renounced violence and expects us to do the same.
We’re embarrassed at being connected to a Messiah who is a servant rather than a VIP, and expects us to be the same.
Finally, I suspect we’re embarrassed at being connected to a Messiah who demands that we sit back, passive and relaxed, while he first ministers to us. It’s embarrassing to sit back, passive and relaxed, and accept such a concrete display of love, and from someone so much greater than ourselves.
We would like to be in charge and would have no trouble washing the feet of Jesus. But to graciously accept his love and forgiveness and acceptance is another thing altogether.
It demands that we love Jesus in return – really love him, which means that we’re willing to become like him.
Even the Resurrection, the ultimate sign that God is still Emmanuel, still with us, is not enough to make us want to become like him.
Like the earliest disciples, we need Pentecost.
We need to allow ourselves to be filled with God’s own Spirit before we can set about doing those things which God has called us to do.
Please be with me in prayer:
Loving God, we thank you that Pentecost has already begun in this little group of disciples who call themselves Community Church.
We thank you for the joy of being able to serve.
Through the power of your Holy Spirit in our midst, convince us more and more that you are love and nothing but love, that we can trust you to be always loving, and that we have absolutely nothing to fear from being in relationship with you.
Help us to trust that you are always for and with us, and never against us.
Through the power of your Holy Spirit in our midst, convince us more and more
that Jesus was and is real,
that his healings are real,
his teachings are real,
his Resurrection is real,
and you, God, are real .
Through the gentle power of your Spirit in each of our lives, help us to sit back, relax, and allow you to minister to us, allow you to make us into the person you have called each of us to be.
Help us to embrace the fullness, the freedom, and the joy of living that Jesus came to give.
Amen.
QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION
Which of the quotations on service in the section of Introductory Readings is your favorite and why?
What do you personally find most embarrassing about Jesus and why?
CLOSING PRAYER: Angela Ashwin, Contemporary
Lord, make us, your Church, into the people you want us to be,
and forgive us where we fall short.
Teach us to be generous in judgment,
bold in commitment,
and sensitive in listening.
Where we find no love, let us bring love,
and make us more like you.
Amen.
SUGGESTED MUSIC: Community of Christ
NYCC Sings! Hymn: “Community of Christ”
North Yarmouth Congregational Church You Tube
BENEDICTION
Patiently and persistently, God loves.
Relentlessly and unconditionally, God loves.
Now and forever, God loves.
AMEN.