COMMUNITY CHURCH OF THE MONTEREY PENINSULA
P. O. BOX 222811
CARMEL CA 93922
(831) 624-8595
Rev. Paul Wrightman, Pastor
Independent and United Church of Christ
May 30, 2021
Dear Friends,
Elizabeth and I just returned a few hours ago from a very enjoyable week in a vacation rental home near Sequoia National Park. In addition to the staggering beauty of the giant sequoias, we had an unexpected highlight to our trip. A family of red tailed hawks had built their nest directly above the cabin, and two fledglings tumbled out of the nest prematurely. We observed them outside for a couple of days, hoping that they would gain strength and be able to make it on their own. But on the third day, looking even more forlorn and bedraggled than usual, we realized that they needed some outside intervention. Elizabeth made several calls, and was put in touch with a volunteer rescue team, which came to the house, carefully picked up the birds, and drove them (an hour-and-a-half trip!) to a wild animal shelter in Squaw Valley.
We’re all familiar with the cliché “God works in mysterious ways.” Of course we’ll never know for sure until we see God face-to-face, but both of us sensed very strongly that one of the reasons we were in that particular place at that particular time was precisely so that we could help save those two young red tailed hawks. This experience was a powerful reminder for us that Mystery and Providence are just as real (indeed, moreso!) as computers and cell phones, and that to be invited to participate in these realities is one of life’s high points.
Stay Safe, Take Good Care,
And Always Remember that Jesus IS Emmanuel – God WITH Us!
Pastor Paul
WORSHIP SERVICE FOR MAY 30, 2021
INTRODUCTION: BEARING ONE ANOTHER’S BURDENS
In Booker T. Washington’s autobiography, Up from Slavery, Mr. Washington recalled a beautiful incident of an older brother’s love. He said the shirts worn on his plantation by the slaves were made of a rough, bristly, inexpensive flax fiber. As a young boy, the garment was so abrasive to his tender, sensitive skin that it caused him a great deal of pain and discomfort. His older brother, moved by his brother’s suffering, would wear Booker’s new shirts, until they were broken in and smoother to the touch. Booker said it was one of the most striking acts of kindness he had experienced among his fellow slaves. What a beautiful illustration of “bearing one another’s burdens,” which we are admonished to do in Galatians 6:20.
SUGGESTED MUSIC: Spirit of God, Descend Upon My Heart –
The Joslin Grove Choral Society
Presbyterian Church of Marion You Tube
OPENING PRAYER: Cricket Harrison, Contemporary
Judge of the Nations,
we remember before you with grateful hearts
the men and women of our country
who in the day of decision ventured much
for the liberty and security we now enjoy.
Grant that we may not rest
until all the people of this land
share the benefits of true freedom
and gladly accept its disciplines and responsibilities.
This we ask in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord.
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: Matthew 12:1-13
At that time Jesus went through the cornfields on the sabbath; his disciples were hungry, and they began to pluck heads of grain and to eat. When the Pharisees saw it, they said to him, ‘Look, your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the sabbath.’ He said to them, ‘Have you not read what David did when he and his companions were hungry? He entered the house of God and ate the bread of the Presence, which it was not lawful for him or his companions to eat, but only for the priests. Or have you not read in the law that on the sabbath the priests in the temple break the sabbath and yet are guiltless? I tell you, something greater than the temple is here. But if you had known what this means, “I desire mercy and not sacrifice,” you would not have condemned the guiltless. For the Son of Man is lord of the sabbath.’
He left that place and entered their synagogue. A man was there with a paralyzed hand, and they asked him, ‘Is it lawful to cure on the sabbath?’ so that they might accuse him. He said to them, ‘Suppose one of you has only one sheep and it falls into a pit on the sabbath. Will you not lay hold of it and lift it out? How much more valuable is a human being than a sheep! So it is lawful to do good on the sabbath.’ Then he said to the man, ‘Stretch out your hand.’ He stretched it out, and it was restored, as sound as the other. But the Pharisees went out and conspired against him, how to destroy him.
SERMON: UNLIMITED COMPASSION
Rev. Paul Wrightman
(The underlining indicates what I would emphasize if delivered orally.)
A Greek class at a prestigious seminary was given the assignment to study the story of the Good Samaritan. The students were to do an in-depth analysis of the biblical text, observing and commenting on all the major terms and syntactical factors worth mentioning. Each student was to write their own translation after having finished their commentary.
As is true in most language classes, several of the students cared more about the practical implications of the assignment than its intellectual stimulation. The morning the work was to be turned in, three Greek students teamed up and carried out a plan to prove their point.
One volunteered to play the part of the victim. They tore his shirt and pants, rubbed mud and ketchup, and other realistic-looking ingredients to serve as “wounds,” and marked up his eyes, face, and hair so thoroughly that he was no longer recognizable.
The victim placed himself along the path that led from the dorms to the Greek classroom, while his two accomplices hid and watched. The victim groaned and thrashed about, simulating great pain.
Not one student stopped. They walked around him, stepped over him, and said different things to him. But nobody stopped to help. (Adapted from a true story by Charles Swindoll in his book The Tale of the Tardy Oxcart.)
There is a sad and deadly connection between this contemporary incident and the incident described in today’s Scripture reading. That sad and deadly connection is this: In both cases, leaders of the religious establishment fail to respond to someone in need.
In the example from our own day, those future church ministers might very well be getting an “A” in Biblical Greek, but failed miserably in actually living out the meaning of the parable that they were studying.
In the example from Jesus’ day, certain Pharisees take issue with his healing on the Sabbath, and want to forbid Jesus and his disciples from doing so.
The commandment to honor the Sabbath and keep it holy – one of the original Ten Commandments – was stated in the most general of terms. To be sure, work was not allowed on the Sabbath, but the meaning of “work” was left undefined. This was done on purpose so that certain legalistic types wouldn’t get carried away in coming up with their own narrow definitions of what honoring the Sabbath meant.
So, what happened to the original open-endedness of the Sabbath commandment? You guessed it – certain legalistic types did get carried away in coming up with their own narrow definitions of what honoring the Sabbath was all about.
By Jesus’ day some of these religious fanatics had piled on so many additional laws concerning what could and could not be done on the Sabbath that the disciples of Jesus, in plucking and eating grain on the Sabbath, were considered guilty of breaking not just one, but four important Sabbath laws:
By plucking the corn they were guilty of reaping; by rubbing it in their hands they were guilty of threshing; by separating the grain and the chaff they were guilty of winnowing; and by this whole process, they were guilty of preparing a meal on the Sabbath. (William Barclay, The Gospel of Matthew.)
Jesus does not hesitate to challenge and to correct these oral additions to the written law on the Sabbath contained in the Ten Commandments. He cites the example of King David in the Hebrew Scriptures, who broke the literal law stating that only the priests were allowed to eat the sacred bread in the tabernacle. David’s followers were hungry, so they ate, and with David’s blessing, and probably participation.
Jesus then cites the example of the temple in Jerusalem continuing to offer sacrifices on the Sabbath, even though the act of making the sacrifice was officially considered to be “work.”
Then Jesus – in a breathtaking demonstration of how at-ease he was with his own authority – argues from the lesser to the greater by stating that someone far greater than the temple priests, the temple sacrifices, or the temple itself was standing in their midst.
In doing so, he is making the amazing claim that he is “Lord of the Sabbath,” that he has the authority to decide what is and what is not acceptable on the Sabbath.
By quoting the prophet Hosea that God desires “Mercy and not sacrifice” (Hosea 6:6), Jesus makes it unmistakably clear what he considers God’s own priorities to be, and that God’s own priorities lie distinctly in the direction of human needs taking precedence over ritual laws.
In today’s Gospel, Jesus is unequivocally teaching that if ritual law conflicts with human need, we go with the need and not with the law.
According to many of the Pharisees of Jesus’ day, it was clearly against the law for a person to rescue a sheep on the Sabbath. Jesus refers to this no-pulling-sheep-from-pit-on-the-Sabbath-law, only to trash it: “Suppose one of you has a sheep and it falls into a pit on the Sabbath; will you not lay hold of it and lift it out?”
Here Jesus is implicitly acknowledging the common-sense wisdom of the peasants and shepherds whom he knew so well – the need of the sheep outweighs the reach of the Sabbath law.
And again arguing from the lesser to the greater, Jesus goes on to state “How much more valuable is a human being than a sheep.” In other words, if the need of a sheep to be pulled out of a pit outweighs the ritual law, how much more does the need of a human being for healing outweigh ritual law.
I invite you to compare and contrast the blatant disregard for the need of a fellow human being demonstrated by that Greek seminary class with the following from Andrew Davison, a retired professor at Colgate-Rochester Seminary who writes:
“Dr. Albert Schweitzer was eighty-five years old when I visited his jungle hospital at Lambarene, on the banks of the Ogowe River. You can imagine the deep and profound effect of that three-day visit, which included opportunity for some leisurely conversation with that great humanitarian. But one event stands out in a special way.
“It was about eleven in the morning. The equatorial sun was beating down mercilessly, and we were walking up a hill with Dr. Schweitzer. Suddenly he left us and strode across the slope of the hill to a place where an African woman was struggling upward with a huge armload of wood for the cookfires. I watched with both admiration and concern as the eighty-five-year-old man took the entire load of wood and carried it on up the hill for the relieved woman.
“When we had all reached the top of the hill, one of the members of our group asked Dr. Schweitzer why he did things like that, implying that in that heat and at his age he should not. Albert Schweitzer, looking right at all of us and pointing to the woman, said simply, “No one should ever have to carry a burden like that alone.” (Illustrations Unlimited)
I think this one liner by Dr. Schweitzer, “No one should ever have to carry a burden like that alone,” is one of the best short descriptions of the reason for Jesus and his ministry that I’ve ever heard. It is clearly the sentiment of Jesus himself as he tells us that “Inasmuch as you have done if for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you have done it for me” (Matthew 25:40).
Leo Tolstoy fleshes-out this solidarity of Jesus with the down-and-out in his famour short story featuring the shoemaker Martin Avdeitch:
One night Martin Aveditch, a humble shoemaker, dozing over his open Bible, seemed to hear a voice saying: “Martin, look thou into the street tomorrow, for I am coming to visit thee.”
Convinced that the Lord Jesus was going to visit him, Martin awoke the next morning with nervous excitement. But no one showed up that day except a succession of penniless and pitiful souls: An aged veteran, a shivering mother and newborn, an old peddler woman and a frightened boy who had filched one of her apples. With a kind heart, Martin cared for each person, but as evening fell, he was disappointed that Jesus had not visited that day.
Putting on his spectacles, he took up his Bible with a sigh, and it opened to Matthew, chapter 25. Martin read: “For I was hungry and you gave me food; I was thirsty and you gave me drink; I was a stranger and you took me in.”
“Lord, when did we do these things?” Looking on down the page, Martin read: “Truly, truly I say to you, inasmuch as you did it for one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me.”
Tolstoy concludes by saying: “Then Martin Aveditch understood that the vision had come true, and that his Savior had in very truth visited him that day, and that he had received him.”
Given the extremely challenging times we’re going through as a nation, I’m being asked more and more what I think is a good rule-of-thumb by which to navigate these impossible times specifically as a Christian, a follower of Christ.
A guideline which I have personally found very useful is to ask myself the question “What would Jesus do?” In other words, based on everything that we know about Jesus in the Gospels, based on how Jesus responded to people back then, how would Jesus have me respond to people right now?
A second touchstone which I’ve found to be helpful is “What would Jesus ask?”
Given any of the multitude of problematic situations in which our country finds itself in today, what would Jesus ask about that situation, and perhaps more importantly, “What would Jesus ask about the person or persons calling the shots in that situation?”
In the context of preparing this sermon, I found a third gauge by which to measure a situation, and the person or persons responsible for creating that situation. That third gauge is Albert Schweitzer’s statement: “No one should ever have to carry a burden like that alone.”
Is someone creating impossible burdens for others to carry?
Learning from Jesus in today’s Scripture reading, when we become aware that someone is creating impossible burdens for others to carry, the Jesus-like response would be twofold: First, to oppose that person with all the resources available to one – just as Jesus opposed certain of the Pharisees. And second, it would be to help the person with the impossible burden to carry that burden, just as Albert Schweitzer helped the African woman to carry her load of wood.
In closing, I’d like to share with you the following by Ted Engstrom from his book The Pursuit of Excellence. He writes:
“I was cleaning out a desk drawer when I found a flashlight I hadn’t used in over a year. I flipped the switch but wasn’t surprised when it gave no light. I unscrewed it and shook it to get the batteries out, but they wouldn’t budge. Finally, after some effort, they came loose.
“What a mess! Battery acid had corroded the entire inside of the flashlight. The batteries were new when I’d put them in, and I’d stored them in a safe, warm place.
“But there was one problem. Those batteries weren’t made to be warm and comfortable. They were designed to be turned on – to be used.”
Engstrom concludes: “It’s the same with us. We weren’t created to be warm, safe, and comfortable. You and I were made to be “turned on” – to put our love to work, to apply our patience in difficult, trying situations – to let our light shine.”
Amen.
REFLECTION QUESTIONS
Have you witnessed an act of compassion that remains an inspiration to you? Please describe.
What do you see as burdens that no one should have to carry alone?
In what areas of your life would you like to develop more compassion toward others?
How can you develop more compassion toward yourself?
CLOSING PRAYER: Cecil Kerr, Contemporary
Lord Jesus Christ, you are the way of peace.
Come into the brokenness of our lives and our land
with your healing love.
Help us to be willing to come before you
in true repentance,
and to offer one another real forgiveness.
By the fire of your Holy Spirit,
melt our hard hearts
and consume the pride and prejudice
which separate us.
Fill us, O Lord, with your perfect love
which casts out all fear
and bind us together in that unity
which you share with the Father and the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
SUGGESTED MUSIC: Breathe on Me, Breath of God
SE Samonte You Tube
BENEDICTION
Patiently and persistently, God loves.
Relentlessly and unconditionally, God loves.
Now and forever, God loves.
AMEN.