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 14, 2021
Dear Friends,
Please check out our new website at Pray With Us @ CCMP.ORG. Work on it continues. We are especially in need of good photographs of people and events. Helmut would like to bring this project to completion in the next few weeks, so the window on receiving photos will close on March 28. Please send your pictures to me at paulccmp@yahoo.com. Thank you!
From Dolores Joblon: Many thanks to Cindi Daniel, Peggy Kuck, Kathy Curless, and Carole French for providing our monthly dinner to the I Help men who are sheltering in place at a nearby church during the pandemic. The men are doing well and are grateful for the support that we give them. Thank you once again!
The GivingTree Benefit Shop is now open on Thursdays and Fridays from 1-4. Sales are going well. More volunteers are needed in order for it to open on Saturday as well.
The GivingTree is the first milestone in our process of gradually reopening. Next month a short version of our church’s newsletter, Beyond Sunday, will appear, to be followed by a full version in May. Your Board of Governors will be making detailed plans for reopening for worship at its next meeting on March 21.
Stay Safe, Take Care, and Always Remember that Jesus IS Emmanuel, God WITH Us!
Pastor Paul
WORSHIP SERVICE FOR MARCH 14, 2021
INTRODUCTORY READINGS
St. Theophan the Recluse (Russian Orthodox)
You must descend from
your head into your heart.
At present your thoughts of God
are in your head.
And God is, as it were,
outside you,
and so your prayer
and other spiritual exercises
remain exterior.
While you are still in your head,
thoughts will not easily be subdued
but will always be whirling about,
like snow in winter
or clouds of mosquitoes in summer.
George Herbert (1593-1633) (Anglican)
The Call
Come, my way, my truth, my life:
Such a way, as gives us breath:
Such a truth, as ends all strife:
Such a life, as killeth death. . .
Come, my joy, my love, my heart:
Such a joy, as none can move:
Such a love, as none can part:
Such a heart, as joys in love.
SUGGESTED MUSIC: Christ Has Broken Down the Wall
youthcumc You Tube
OPENING PRAYER: Brennan Manning, Contemporary
Lord Jesus,
we are silly sheep
who have dared to stand before you
and try to bribe you
with our preposterous portfolios.
Suddenly we have come to our senses.
Give us the grace to admit
we are ragamuffins,
to embrace our brokenness,
to celebrate your mercy
when we are at our weakest,
to rely on your mercy
no matter what we may do.
Dear Jesus,
gift us to stop grandstanding
and trying to get attention,
to do the truth quietly without display,
to let the dishonesties in our lives
fade away,
to accept our limitations,
to cling to the gospel of grace,
and to delight in your love.
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 READING: John 14:16-18; John 15:15; 1 John 4:16-19
John 14:16-18
I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, another Comforter, to be with you forever. This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you. I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you.
John 15:15
I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing. But I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father.
1 John 4:16b, 18-19
God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God in them. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. We love because he first loved us.
SERMON: WHAT DOES A CLOSE RELATIONSHIP WITH JESUS LOOK LIKE?
Rev. Paul Wrightman
(The underlining indicates what I would emphasize if delivered orally.)
“The story is told of a devout Jewish couple. They had married with great love, and the love never died. Their greatest hope was to have a child so that their love could walk the earth with joy. Yet there were difficulties. And since they were very devout, they prayed. And lo and behold, the wife conceived. And nine months later a delightful little boy came tumbling into the world.
They named him Mordecai. He was rambunctious, gulping down the days and dreaming through the nights. The sun and moon were his toys. He grew in age and wisdom and grace, until it was time to go to the synagogue and learn the word of God.
The night before his studies were to begin, his parents sat Mordecai down and told him how important the word of God was. They stressed that without the word of God Mordecai would be an autumn leaf in the winter’s wind. He listened wide-eyed.
Yet the next day he never arrived at the synagogue. Instead, he found himself in the woods, swimming in the lake and climbing the trees. When he came home that night, the news had spread throughout the small village. Everyone knew of his shame. His parents were beside themselves. They did not know what to do.
So they called in the behavior modificationists to modify Mordecai’s behavior, until there was no behavior of Mordecai that was not modified. Nevertheless, the next day he found himself in the woods, swimming in the lake and climbing the trees.
So they called in the psychoanalysts, who unlocked Mordecai’s blockages, so there were no more blocks for Mordecai to be blocked by. Nevertheless, he found himself in the woods the next day, swimming in the lake and climbing the trees.
His parents grieved for their beloved son. There seemed to be no hope.
At this same time the great Rabbi visited the village. And the parents said, ‘Ah, perhaps the Rabbi.’ So they took Mordecai to the Rabbi and told him their tale of woe. The Rabbi bellowed, ‘’Leave the boy with me, and I will have a talking with him.’
It was bad enough that Mordecai would not go to the synagogue. But to leave their beloved son alone with this lion of a man was terrifying. However, they had come this far, and so they left him.
Now Mordecai stood in the hallway, and the great Rabbi stood in the parlor. He beckoned, ‘Boy, come here.’ Trembling, Mordecai came forward.
And then the great Rabbi picked him up and held him silently against his heart.
His parents came to get Mordecai, and they took him home. The next day he went to the synagogue to learn the word of God.
And when he was done, he went to the woods. And the word of God became one with the words of the woods, which became one with the words of Mordecai.
And he swam in the lake. And the word of God became one with the words of the lake, which became one with the words of Mordecai.
And he climbed the trees. And the word of God became one with the words of the trees, which became one with the words of Mordecai.
And Mordecai himself grew up to become a great man.
People who were seized with panic came to him and found peace.
People who were without anybody came to him and found communion.
People with no exits came to him and found a way out.
And when they came to him he said, ‘I first learned the word of God when the great Rabbi held me silently against his heart.’” (John Shea, Starlight)
The question for us today is “Have we allowed Rabbi Jesus to hold us silently against his heart?”
Another way of putting this would be: “Are we participating in a heart-to-heart relationship with Jesus, and not just believing the right things about him in our heads?”
Our service today is introduced by the words of two major Christian mystics, or prayer-people: St. Theophan the Recluse from the Russian Orthodox Tradition, and George Herbert from the Anglican tradition.
St, Theophan tells us that “We must descend from our head into our heart.” He goes on to say that as long as our primary access to God is in our head, God, and our relationship with God, will remain essentially exterior, outside our deepest selves.
In “The Call” from Five Mystical Songs, George Herbert, echoing the “I am the way, the truth, and the life,” saying of Jesus in the Gospel of John, writes:
Come, my way, my truth, my life:
Such a way, as gives us breath:
Such a truth, as ends all strife:
Such a life, as killeth death. . .
Come, my joy, my love, my heart:
Such a joy, as none can move:
Such a love, as none can part:
Such a heart, as joys in love.
The words of George Herbert are in themselves a profound meditation on the affective, or heart-to-heart, meaning of the Gospel of John, from which our Scripture readings come again today.
The first three Gospels, those of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, follow essentially the same trajectory of Jesus’ life, and while there are elements unique to each, there is a lot of overlapping material.
The fourth Gospel, that of John, is a different kind of book altogether. The last Gospel to be written – probably when John the apostle was in his 90’s – is considered by many to be the summation of John’s life-long meditation on the inner meaning of Jesus’ life and teachings.
John very much affirms the assertion that God became a person in the person of Jesus.
In sharing with us the event of how at the Last Supper he leaned back against Jesus, in effect, leaning his head against Jesus’ heart, it’s almost as if John is telling us that in that moment he was able to hear the heartbeat of God.
Like the story of Mordecai, who was healed by the great Rabbi picking him up and holding him silently against his heart, John undergoes a transformation at the Last Supper in leaning against Jesus’ heart, a transformation that he will spend the rest of his life contemplating, a transformation that toward the end of his life is embodied and becomes the Gospel of John.
John’s Gospel is intensely relational, and portrays God as deeply desiring to be in relationship with each of us.
More than Matthew, Mark, and Luke, John pictures Jesus in terms of his unique being. In the so-called “I am” sayings of Jesus – found only in the Gospel of John – Jesus is described in terms of several ultimates.
As you read these “I am” sayings, try to connect with them with your heart instead of your head:
“I am the bread of life.” (John 6:35)
“I am the light of the world.” (John 8:12)
“I am the gate.” (John 10:9)
“I am the good shepherd.” (John 10:14)
“I am the resurrection and the life.” (John 11:25)
“I am the way the truth and the life.” (John 14:6)
“I am the vine; you are the branches.” (John 15:5)
Each of these ultimates reveals to us something unique about the heart of Jesus and the love of God. Each of these ultimates invites us to make a heart-response to God, to allow God’s being to connect with our being, and in that connection to find our deepest life and truth and joy.
One of the You Tube song suggestions for this service is Christ Has Broken Down the Wall. I encourage you to listen to this song and to invite its words to flow into your heart.
Even before his death and resurrection, the disciples sensed this about Jesus, that in him the “wall” between us and God has definitively come down.
The defining characteristic of God in Jesus’ day was God’s holiness, or purity. It was believed that sinners would be obliterated simply by coming into contact with God’s purity.
Jesus was determined to re-define the defining characteristic of God as love. Jesus maintained that by coming into contact with the love of God, sinners would experience not God’s wrath, but God’s acceptance and compassion.
John’s is the only Gospel where Jesus calls us his friends, with the shocking implication that we are God’s friends as well.
Given John’s emphasis on the love of God, it’s not surprising that in one of his letters John actually makes an identification between God and love by boldly telling us that “God is love.” (1 John 4:16b)
No other religious tradition on the planet makes this bold identification between God and love. John got it from Jesus who got it from God.
Brennan Manning shares with us a story from Ireland. It is somewhat similar to another story of his about a nun learning how to connect with Jesus, but has a different ending. It is the story of an old man dying of cancer.
The old man’s daughter has asked the local priest to come and pray with her father. When the priest arrived, he found the man lying in bed with his head propped up on two pillows and an empty chair beside his bed.
The priest assumed that the old fellow had been informed of his visit. ‘I guess you were expecting me,’ he said. ‘No, who are you?’ ‘I’m the new associate at your parish,’ the priest replied. ‘When I saw the empty chair, I figured you knew I was going to show up.’ ‘Oh yeah, the chair,’ said the bedridden man. ‘Would you mind closing the door?’ Puzzled, the priest shut the door.
‘I’ve never told anyone this, not even my daughter,’ said the man, ‘But all my life I have never known how to pray. At the Sunday Mass I used to hear the pastor talk about prayer, but it always went right over my head. Finally I said to him one day in sheer frustration, ‘I get nothing out of your sermons on prayer.’
‘Here,’ says my pastor, reaching into the bottom drawer of his desk. ‘Read this book by Hans Urs von Balthasar. He’s a Swiss theologian. It’s the best book on contemplative prayer in the twentieth century.’
‘Well, Father,’ says the man, ‘I took the book home and tried to read it. But in the first three pages I had to look up twelve words in the dictionary. I gave the book back to my pastor, thanked him, and under my breath whispered ‘for nothin’.’
‘I abandoned any attempt at prayer,’ he continued, ‘until one day about four years ago my best friend said to me, ‘Joe, prayer is just a simple matter of having a conversation with Jesus.’
‘Here’s what I suggest. Sit down on a chair, place an empty chair in front of you, and in faith see Jesus on the chair. It’s not spooky because Jesus promised to send us his Spirit, the Comforter, and told us that he’d be with us all our days. Then just speak to him and listen in the same way you’re doing with me right now.’
‘So, padre, I tried it and I’ve liked it so much that I do it every day. I’m careful though. If my daughter saw me talking to an empty chair, she’d either have a nervous breakdown or send me off to the funny farm.’
The priest was deeply moved by the story and encouraged the old guy to continue on the journey. Then he prayed with him, anointed him with oil, and returned to the rectory. Two nights later the daughter called to tell the priest that he daddy had died that afternoon.
‘Did he seem to die in peace?’ he asked. ‘Yes, when I left the house around two o’clock, he called me over to his bedside, told me one of his corny jokes, and kissed me on the cheek. When I got back from the store an hour later, I found him dead.
‘But there was something strange, father. In fact, beyond strange, kinda weird. Apparently just before daddy died, he leaned over and rested his head on a chair beside his bed.” (Brennan Manning, Abba’s Child)
Let’s conclude, as we began, with words from St. Theophan and George Herbert:
You must descend from your head into your heart.
Come, my way, my truth, my life:
Such a way, as gives us breath:
Such a truth, as ends all strife:
Such a life, as killeth death.
Amen.
QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION
What surprised you about the story of Mordecai?
What changes when God’s defining characteristic is considered to be love instead of holiness or purity?
Which of Jesus’ “I am” sayings connects with you the most and why?
CLOSING PRAYER: Richard Foster, Contemporary
Today, O Lord, I accept your acceptance of me.
I confess that you are always with me and always for me.
I receive into my spirit your grace, your mercy, your care.
I rest in your love, O Lord. I rest in your love.
Amen.
SUGGESTED MUSIC: On Eagle’s Wings francislimsj You Tube
BENEDICTION
Patiently and persistently, God loves.
Relentlessly and unconditionally, God loves.
Now and forever, God loves.
AMEN.