Announcements:
Thanks for reading our worship for this Sunday. We trust you are well and coping with the current pandemic.
Question: Who do you consider to be your neighbor?
Call to Worship (1 John 4:7-9)
Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God;
everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.
Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.
God’s love was revealed among us in this way:
God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him.
Let us worship and express our love for God together.
Prayers of Adoration, Confession, and Assurance
Almighty God,
We praise you that you have poured out your love on all your creation.
We praise you that you created us to know you, love you, and to love others.
We praise you for the love you have shown to us in Christ our Lord,
whose life, witness, and work demonstrated your love for our world.
We praise you for your Holy Spirit, who indwells and directs us
so that we can be your loving people.
Gracious God,
In light of your great love and mercy,
We come to you confessing the sins we have committed against one another.
In light of the events around the tragic death of George Floyd,
we have been confronted with our own prejudices against others,
in blatant and subtle forms that we do not always admit or acknowledge
to you or ourselves.
We confess the fear and dislike we hold and hang onto against others because of their race,
culture, gender, religion, sexual orientation, education, political views, and more.
We confess our reluctance to listen and understand other’s viewpoints, opinions, experiencing,
sadly believing that ours carry more weight than theirs.
We confess how our prejudices and uncaring thoughts, words and actions have caused harm to others and hurt the witness of the church of drawing people into your family.
It is hard for us to honestly confess such things to you and to ourselves,
but we do so in the shadow of the cross, where Christ, the Righteous One,
suffered and died for us, the unrighteous,
that we might receive forgiveness and the power to make corrective changes
so we might be more in step with your good and perfect will for all people.
Gracious and Merciful Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer
Forgive our sins as we humbly and honestly confess them before you.
Remove from our hearts and minds all that inhibits us from seeing and loving our neighbors as you command us to
and as we would want to be treated.
Instill within us a new attitude that welcomes and embraces all people
that they may know your love shown to us through the example of Christ our Lord.
Remind and assure us of your forgiving love in the words of Jesus who declared,
“Come unto me all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you and learn from me; for I am gentle and lowly in heart,
and you shall find rest for your souls.” (Matthew 11:28-29)
Accept the worship we offer you this day and every day
in the name of living Lord. Amen.
Hymn: “Jesu, Jesu, fill us with your love” Words: Tom Clovin. Music: Ghanaian Folk Melody
Prayer for Understanding
Teaching Spirit, to love and know you and the Father and the Son, is to listen to you speaking in the words of the Scripture, in the meditations of our hearts, and in loving our neighbors. Give us ears to hear what we need to follow you faithfully in the week ahead. Amen.
Scripture Readings
Micah 6:6-8 God through the prophet tells what the Lord requires of us.
Luke 10:25-37 Jesus responds to the question, “Who is my neighbor?”
Sermon: “Who is my neighbor?”
This past week has been a difficult week for many of us as we watched the events surrounding the death of George Floyd and the protests that have followed it. It has caused many of us to lament the current state of our world and wonder when are things going to get better? This tragedy points out that we still have trouble answering the simple question “Who is my neighbor?” that was asked of Jesus.
I’ll grant you that is simplistic at first glance, but the question and how we answer it goes so much deeper to how we live as people created in the image of God? How do we live with others who are equally created in God’s image? And how we answer the question “Who is my neighbor?” It is plain to see by all who we believe is our neighbor by what think, say, and do. From personal encounters to national conversations, we still wrestle with the question of “Who is my / our neighbor and how will I / we treat that person who looks back at us.
The question of “Who is my neighbor?” as most of you know by now, comes from a story in gospel of Luke, commonly called “The story of the Good Samaritan.” It begins with a lawyer asking Jesus a simple question “What must I do to inherit eternal life?”
Jesus’ discussion with the lawyer then leads to a discussion about how we practically live out God’s command to love our neighbor as ourselves. Jesus declared the love of God and love of neighbor were Great Commandments on which the entire Mosaic Law was built. That question of which is the greatest commandment was also asked by one also testing Jesus.
The lawyer’s question of “Who is my neighbor?” reveals that what the lawyer honestly wanted to know was “who did he have to love” and likewise “who he didn’t have to love” to fulfill the minimum requirements of the law!
If we are honest with ourselves, I suspect that we have asked that question a time or two as well. The question of “who is our neighbor?” challenges us to move beyond our personal comfort zones to love others whom God wants us to embrace on his behalf, some of whom are quite different from us. Learning to love the people who are different from us helps us to understand and appreciate God’s love for us in much deeper and profound ways.
It has been amazing and encouraging during this time of Covid-19 to witness how people have gone out of their way to love their neighbors known and unknown in their communities and beyond. Some of examples of this are Local restaurants have provided meals for hospital staff, musicians playing music outside of nursing homes, neighbors helping neighbors clear out belonging in flooded Exshaw, neighbors asking neighbors what they need before going shopping. I pray that this renewed interest in helping one’s neighbor doesn’t go away as we move forward from the pandemic.
Jesus responds to the Lawyer’s reluctance to follow him by telling a story that challenges his understanding of how to be a good neighbor and who is his neighbor as God defines a neighbor. In doing Jesus wants the man to move him toward a deeper commitment to God through loving his neighbor.
Jesus points us to the truth that there are people all around us who are WOUNDED and who need our help for various reasons. Many people struggle and suffer both visibly and invisibly, loudly and silently as has been highlighted and revealed in the pandemic and in the protests against discrimination and racism around the world. The question of “How are you?” has moved from being a passing question to a compassionate question where we wait for the person to tell us and giving them the necessary time to share with us. I pray we don’t stop learning to listen and learning to share how we are.
One Sunday at my sister’s church in California, one of the elders dressed up as a homeless man and begged for money in front of the church. Only of a few of the hundreds of Christians who worshiped there that day bothered to talk to the homeless man and asked how they could help him. That was done a time before the pandemic. I would hope that now more people would stop and ask to help him.
In the parable, Jesus does one of his great reversals where those who are typically understood to be good guys in a story, typically religious folk and leaders, are poor examples of faithfulness. And it is the outcast or those rejected by the good people, who act in a Christ-like manner and who become role models for what it means to be faithful to God. The shocking hero is meant to disturb us and shake those Jesus who was speaking to and us out of our complacency with our own understandings. Sometimes it takes disturbing events or shocking responses from Jesus to get us all moving in the right direction as God desires.
First, we need to learn and relearn that Love for a Neighbor mean s a willingness to abandon our personal plans in order to meet another’s needs with the resources God has given us.
Kindness is truly kindness when it goes all the way to restoring the safety of the neighbor. The Samaritan applied compassion, antiseptic wine, and healing oil to the wounds of the injured traveler. He dismounted his donkey to allow the wounded to ride. He paid two days’ wages in advance rent to allow the hurt man to recover strength and then guaranteed repayment if additional days of recuperation were needed.
This Samaritan neglected his travel schedule and ransacked his own expense account to turn a wounded, stranger into a friend and neighbor. We see in the actions of the Good Samaritan the actions of Jesus, who allowed those in need to disrupt his plans, who served others without asking anything in return, and whose costly love for us brings wholeness.
Secondly, being a neighbor means turning strangers into neighbors even when it means going against our normal practices and long held views. On several occasions, Jesus told the teachers of the Law and faithful laypeople, to go back to Sabbath school with the command, “Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy more than sacrifice”‘ (see Matthew 12:7 from Hosea 6:6).
Our experience and celebration of God’s mercy as the gathered people of God on Sunday must always be reflected in our acts of mercy, kindness, and witness to others as people who are sent by Christ into our neighborhood week by week. This is even more obvious now as we have been worshiping at home and reaching out in new ways to the people some of whom we did not know before the pandemic. The prophet Micah succinctly reminds us that the Lord God requires each of to do justice (especially the least), to love God’s merciful kindness, and to walk humbly with God and each other.
Jesus got into trouble from the religious leaders of his day by ignoring established religious customs to avoid certain groups in order to love people who were outside the faith, who were hated by the Jewish community of the day for past wrongs (i.e. Samaritans and Gentiles), and those who were believed to be beyond the scope of God’s love and grace. We need to always remember that as Gentiles were outsiders and not the “chosen ones” in that society. Jesus established and demonstrated who is our neighbor. Through Jesus’ words and actions, many people came to know the love and mercy of God. We celebrate the gift of being loved and welcomed into God’s family by doing the same with others.
And thirdly being a neighbor means that we refuse to exclude anyone from our circle of neighborly love. The only person who would ask the question, “Who is my neighbor?” is someone who doesn’t want to move beyond their comfort zone to love others as God commands and who doesn’t want to confront and repent of their own prejudices. To not love others as our neighbors for any reason, is to reject God’s love for us.
A love of God will always flow outward to a love of neighbor. To look at anyone and see them as a neighbor is to see the face of Jesus reflected in their face looking back at us. This is highlighted in Jesus’ parable of the separation of the sheep and goats where Jesus praises the just and loving actions of those caring for the least “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.’” (Matthew 25.40)
The standards of love that Jesus shares and demonstrates are ones that move us to humbly ask God to help achieve what God requires of us as his followers.
At the end of the story, Jesus asked the well-meaning lawyer an d asks us who have heard the story the same question, “Who was the neighbor of the story?”
The obvious answer is sadly not the two religious types who ignored the wounded man and who did nothing to meet his needs. The answer is the unlikely hero of our story, the Samaritan. He saw a person in need and knew he had the resources to meet the need and showed mercy to him. He lived out the Old Testament teaching and most of all Jesus’ understanding of who a neighbor is and what a good neighbor does.
And thus, Jesus charges us to go and show the same kind of practical, unbiased, and compassionate mercy as shown to us first by God and secondly by the religious, ethnically, and cultural outsider who is called the Good Samaritan.
Let anyone who has an ear listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches and to our world about “Who is our neighbor?”
To Father, Son, and Spirit, be all glory, honor, and praise, now and forever. Amen.
Hymn: “Brother, sister let me serve you” Words/Music: Richard Gillard
Sharing our Concerns and Thanksgivings
Please feel free to pass on your prayer requests to me through email, text, or phone. You can reach me at stpaulsbanff@telus.net . I lift you all in prayer each day and would like to know how to pray for you and what concerns you.
Prayers of the People
God of our past and our future, God of healing and hope,
We come before you with grateful hearts,
trusting that you walk with us through all the times of our lives,
including this strange time of illness and isolation.
You are still the God of our history and God of the world you love,
so hear us as we pray for your world and the people around us.
Today we remember those who face danger and despair in these times:
Those who suffer the effects of coronavirus in their lives and in the lives of loved ones;
those living with hunger while the world is distracted,
those caught up in unrest and violence despite the pandemic,
and all whose lives are directed by forces beyond their control…
We pray for all those working to relieve suffering of many different kinds
and bring justice and peace to those most vulnerable.
We pray for all who suffered hatred and discrimination of all kinds.
We pray for the protests, laments, and prayers of people of conscious
will be turned into concrete and positive change that will benefit all people.
God, in your mercy, Hear our prayer.
We pray for all those facing fear or frustration,
and those wrestling with sorrow or discouragement.
We remember those who live with illness, disability or pain day by day,
and all who know the grief and change of bereavement…
We pray for all those who work to bring healing and comfort to those who suffer,
remembering those who put their own health and life at risk during the pandemic.
God, in your mercy, Hear our prayer.
We pray for all who feel helpless or hopeless in this present time of such uncertainty:
For those facing unemployment or struggling to make ends meet,
For those caught up in misunderstanding or broken relationships
And for those working through situations of conflict at home or at work…
We pray for all who offer guidance and support in the midst of such difficulties.
God, in your mercy, Hear our prayer.
God of our past and our future, God of healing and hope,
Hold us together in the days ahead and remind us of our common faith in Christ.
Help us learn from the challenges we are going through new ways of living out our faith.
Support our denomination and our local churches to engage questions and choices
with respect and faithfulness, trusting that you can do new things for us and with us.
Keep us loving and gracious, in the example of Jesus, our Lord and friend,
who pray taught us to pray together:
Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us. Save us from the time of trial and deliver us from evil. For the kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours now and forever. Amen.
Offering of our Time, Talent, Treasure to God
Thank you for ongoing gifts to St. Paul’s. And thank you for the sharing of the time, talent and treasure God has given to you to bless, love, serve, and witness to your neighbors.
Donations for St. Paul’s can be sent by mail to St. Paul’s, Box 1264, Banff, AB T1L 1B3.
Hymn: “Make me a channel of your peace” Words/Music: Sebastian Temples (based on a prayer of Francis of Assisi
Pastoral Charge and Blessing (John 13:20-21 / Luke 10:37, Romans 15:5)
We go into this new week,
to abide in God’s love,
to love another as God has loved us,
to show mercy to others as we have been shown mercy.
May the God of steadfastness and encouragement
Grant you to live in such harmony with one another,
In accordance with Jesus Christ,
So that together you may with one voice
Glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Amen.
We bless each other using the words of the Spirit Song,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iC7RDZP7tFw
Prayer Partnership
Monday, June 8 We pray for the Rev. Dr. Blair and Vivian Bertrand, and their three children. May their transition to life back in Canada after serving three years in Malawi go well and be filled with many blessings.
Tuesday, June 9 We pray for and give thanks to God for those who would have been commissioners to the 2020 General Assembly, which has been cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Wednesday, June 10 We pray for seminary students in their rural and remote summer placements. May this be a time of joy and learning.
Thursday, June 11 During National Indigenous History Month, we give thanks for Indigenous leaders of all ages and nations who are contributing to their communities, and to Canada, and pray for their well-being.
Friday, June 12 We pray for stewardship committees working on plans for fall stewardship campaigns.
Saturday, June 13 We pray for Captain Steven Filyk, who serves as a reserve force military chaplain in Kamloops, B.C., and for his ministry of presence with the diverse communities that are part of the Canadian Armed Forces.