Pentecost 2 6/18/06 Text:Mark 2:23-28 Title: Remember the Sabbath by keeping it Holy
Pentecost 2
6/18/06
Text: Mark 2:23-28
Title: Remember the Sabbath by keeping it Holy.
Please join me in prayer. Almighty God, we acknowledge our complete unworthiness to stand before you. We give you thanks for all things, especially your Word and Sacraments. We ask you to remove any obstacles from our minds that might keep us from understanding your words for us. Keep us steadfast and build in us a true spirit of unity as we approach your throne of grace. In the name of Jesus we pray. Amen
On this, the 2nd Sunday after Pentecost, we continue to celebrate the transformation of the church from law and legalism to gospel and grace. Not that law is not a part of the church now, or that grace was not present before. But rather, in the season of Pentecost, we see the power of the Gospel which reflects the great victory which is ours in Christ Jesus.
As people of the resurrection, we boldly approach the throne of grace with access to the most intimate gifts of God. How marvelous our Sunday morning worship time is!
Do you remember the old blue laws? I do not know if they had them in Mississippi, they did in Texas. Most stores closed on Sunday. If a store did happen to be open, like the H.E.B grocery store in my home town, many sections of the store would be roped off or covered over with sheets of cloth or paper to restrict purchases to only necessities. I never saw it happen, but the store could actually be fined if they sold non-necessity items.
Sundays were special back then. They were viewed as being similar to the Old Testament Jewish Sabbath Day. It was to be a day of worship, family time and rest. In many families, Sunday was observed with almost the same strictness that was present in Jesus’ day.
Today the pendulum has swung almost to the extreme in the opposite direction. Society and unfortunately in too many Christian homes there is almost no importance placed on the Lord's Day anymore. It is sort of considered old fashioned. If they even go to church, many people come only to see and be seen. Others come to catch up on what happened during the week with their friends. There is little or no emphasis on why they are there. Worship is just something that is done while doing the other.
As I have talked to people through the years, I have found that there are many people in churches today, and I do not think our congregation is exempt, that believe worship is what we do to please God. In other words, although they probably would not admit it, it is law, something that you must do to please God and well if you are honest about it, make a few points with God.
The problem is that when you believe that the worship service is more about what you do for God, rather than what God does for you, you have lost the reason for worship.
To show you how big the problem is, I received Saturday morning an email from synod announcing the formation of a task force on worship. Its purpose is to come up with a way to educate the membership of synod on what it means to worship.
They would not be doing this unless they thought that the meaning of worship has been lost in many of our churches today as they try to make their worship service conform to the tastes of society. I am sure this synod group will spend a lot of time, and probably money, addressing the problem when the answer can be found right in God’s Holy Word.
In fact, this morning’s Gospel message in Mark 2:23-28 tells us what worship is. Let me tell you what I mean. In our Gospel we see that Jesus and his disciples are getting into trouble again, for we are told that on one Sabbath they are walking through a grain field, and being hungry the disciples are gathering some grain from the field to eat, something perfectly legal to do at the time.
It almost looks like the teachers of the Law were hiding in the field as Jesus and the disciples came by. I can just picture them, swooping down, as they thought, “We have them now.” They probably ruined more grain than they were saving. They thought they had Jesus and his disciples, but as usual, they were wrong as Jesus pointed out when he told them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath."
They were wrong because for them pleasing God had become a formula. You had to do things a certain way for God to be happy with you. If you walked 30 paces on the Sabbath, he was happy, but if you walked 31 paces he was unhappy. God honored your worship if you knelt at the proper time, but unhappy if you remained standing. God was happy if you tithed, but angry if all you brought was a token of what you had. The list could on and on because in Jesus’ time there were a lot of rules on how to properly worship God on the Sabbath.
Jesus was not the first to try and get God’s people back on track, for in Isaiah 29:13 we read as Isaiah tells the people, “The Lord says: "These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is made up only of rules taught by men.
You see even back in Isaiah’s time the rules of worship had pushed out true worship. The rules of worship had become more important than worship itself. People had a problem in understanding worship then, and people have a problem understanding worship now, for it seems that we still focus way too much of our attention on the form of worship rather than the function of worship.
Now I am not talking about individual preferences for worship. We all have them. I am talking about those who lay a burden on others by saying that you must worship God in a certain way to be truly worshiping him.
I am also not saying that forms of worship are bad. In fact, they are good, for God is a God of order. It really does not work well to have everyone doing his or her own thing at the same time. Can you imagine what it would be like if everyone did their own favorite form of confession or sang their favorite hymn at the same time? It would be chaos and thus not meaningful to anyone.
I am talking about what Jesus is talking about in the Gospel, the problem of making of rules and regulations that have to be obeyed if you are to truly worship God. It is a problem now just as it was then, because when rules and regulations become the focus of worship we are no longer focusing on what God is doing, but on what we are doing, how we are doing it, and whether those around us are doing it properly. And that is not what worship is about.
We come together on Sunday morning to worship God because during the week we have this tendency to forget that God is almighty and all knowing, that he is the creator and sustainer of all things, and that he needs nothing from us. We forget that we have nothing to offer him, including our worship, and that we depend entirely on his goodness toward us.
Worship is not about us, although it is for us. It is not about what we do or how well we do it. It is about God and what he has done and continues to do for us.
That is why Jesus tells us, "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath." Jesus’ statement can be a little confusing, but what he means is that since he was at the creation, and since he took part in the creation, he is in charge of all things, including the Sabbath which in the Old Testament times marked the day he rested after creation. God did not have to rest after creation. He did it for us, to set an example, so that we would know that we need a day of rest, a day to spend at least part of the time in actively worshiping God and resting our bodies.
Nothing has changed since then, for we still need to come together once a week so that we will not forget our total dependence on God and his love for us shown in his words of forgiveness, his words of comfort and peace.
We hear God speak to us through his Word and Sacraments and then we respond with thankful hearts. Thankful for his forgiveness, thankful for his peace in the midst of a world in chaos, thankful for his supplying all we need in this life.
You see worship is not about how we worship, the form of it, but what is in our hearts as we worship God responding to his gifts of Word and Sacrament. Amen
6/18/06
Text: Mark 2:23-28
Title: Remember the Sabbath by keeping it Holy.
Please join me in prayer. Almighty God, we acknowledge our complete unworthiness to stand before you. We give you thanks for all things, especially your Word and Sacraments. We ask you to remove any obstacles from our minds that might keep us from understanding your words for us. Keep us steadfast and build in us a true spirit of unity as we approach your throne of grace. In the name of Jesus we pray. Amen
On this, the 2nd Sunday after Pentecost, we continue to celebrate the transformation of the church from law and legalism to gospel and grace. Not that law is not a part of the church now, or that grace was not present before. But rather, in the season of Pentecost, we see the power of the Gospel which reflects the great victory which is ours in Christ Jesus.
As people of the resurrection, we boldly approach the throne of grace with access to the most intimate gifts of God. How marvelous our Sunday morning worship time is!
Do you remember the old blue laws? I do not know if they had them in Mississippi, they did in Texas. Most stores closed on Sunday. If a store did happen to be open, like the H.E.B grocery store in my home town, many sections of the store would be roped off or covered over with sheets of cloth or paper to restrict purchases to only necessities. I never saw it happen, but the store could actually be fined if they sold non-necessity items.
Sundays were special back then. They were viewed as being similar to the Old Testament Jewish Sabbath Day. It was to be a day of worship, family time and rest. In many families, Sunday was observed with almost the same strictness that was present in Jesus’ day.
Today the pendulum has swung almost to the extreme in the opposite direction. Society and unfortunately in too many Christian homes there is almost no importance placed on the Lord's Day anymore. It is sort of considered old fashioned. If they even go to church, many people come only to see and be seen. Others come to catch up on what happened during the week with their friends. There is little or no emphasis on why they are there. Worship is just something that is done while doing the other.
As I have talked to people through the years, I have found that there are many people in churches today, and I do not think our congregation is exempt, that believe worship is what we do to please God. In other words, although they probably would not admit it, it is law, something that you must do to please God and well if you are honest about it, make a few points with God.
The problem is that when you believe that the worship service is more about what you do for God, rather than what God does for you, you have lost the reason for worship.
To show you how big the problem is, I received Saturday morning an email from synod announcing the formation of a task force on worship. Its purpose is to come up with a way to educate the membership of synod on what it means to worship.
They would not be doing this unless they thought that the meaning of worship has been lost in many of our churches today as they try to make their worship service conform to the tastes of society. I am sure this synod group will spend a lot of time, and probably money, addressing the problem when the answer can be found right in God’s Holy Word.
In fact, this morning’s Gospel message in Mark 2:23-28 tells us what worship is. Let me tell you what I mean. In our Gospel we see that Jesus and his disciples are getting into trouble again, for we are told that on one Sabbath they are walking through a grain field, and being hungry the disciples are gathering some grain from the field to eat, something perfectly legal to do at the time.
It almost looks like the teachers of the Law were hiding in the field as Jesus and the disciples came by. I can just picture them, swooping down, as they thought, “We have them now.” They probably ruined more grain than they were saving. They thought they had Jesus and his disciples, but as usual, they were wrong as Jesus pointed out when he told them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath."
They were wrong because for them pleasing God had become a formula. You had to do things a certain way for God to be happy with you. If you walked 30 paces on the Sabbath, he was happy, but if you walked 31 paces he was unhappy. God honored your worship if you knelt at the proper time, but unhappy if you remained standing. God was happy if you tithed, but angry if all you brought was a token of what you had. The list could on and on because in Jesus’ time there were a lot of rules on how to properly worship God on the Sabbath.
Jesus was not the first to try and get God’s people back on track, for in Isaiah 29:13 we read as Isaiah tells the people, “The Lord says: "These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is made up only of rules taught by men.
You see even back in Isaiah’s time the rules of worship had pushed out true worship. The rules of worship had become more important than worship itself. People had a problem in understanding worship then, and people have a problem understanding worship now, for it seems that we still focus way too much of our attention on the form of worship rather than the function of worship.
Now I am not talking about individual preferences for worship. We all have them. I am talking about those who lay a burden on others by saying that you must worship God in a certain way to be truly worshiping him.
I am also not saying that forms of worship are bad. In fact, they are good, for God is a God of order. It really does not work well to have everyone doing his or her own thing at the same time. Can you imagine what it would be like if everyone did their own favorite form of confession or sang their favorite hymn at the same time? It would be chaos and thus not meaningful to anyone.
I am talking about what Jesus is talking about in the Gospel, the problem of making of rules and regulations that have to be obeyed if you are to truly worship God. It is a problem now just as it was then, because when rules and regulations become the focus of worship we are no longer focusing on what God is doing, but on what we are doing, how we are doing it, and whether those around us are doing it properly. And that is not what worship is about.
We come together on Sunday morning to worship God because during the week we have this tendency to forget that God is almighty and all knowing, that he is the creator and sustainer of all things, and that he needs nothing from us. We forget that we have nothing to offer him, including our worship, and that we depend entirely on his goodness toward us.
Worship is not about us, although it is for us. It is not about what we do or how well we do it. It is about God and what he has done and continues to do for us.
That is why Jesus tells us, "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath." Jesus’ statement can be a little confusing, but what he means is that since he was at the creation, and since he took part in the creation, he is in charge of all things, including the Sabbath which in the Old Testament times marked the day he rested after creation. God did not have to rest after creation. He did it for us, to set an example, so that we would know that we need a day of rest, a day to spend at least part of the time in actively worshiping God and resting our bodies.
Nothing has changed since then, for we still need to come together once a week so that we will not forget our total dependence on God and his love for us shown in his words of forgiveness, his words of comfort and peace.
We hear God speak to us through his Word and Sacraments and then we respond with thankful hearts. Thankful for his forgiveness, thankful for his peace in the midst of a world in chaos, thankful for his supplying all we need in this life.
You see worship is not about how we worship, the form of it, but what is in our hearts as we worship God responding to his gifts of Word and Sacrament. Amen
posted by Pastor Rhoads | 1:47 PM
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