4:45-5:05  Meet & Greet

5:05-5:20  Welcome, Explanation & Vision Casting

Tonight we’re celebrating Easter, and I think you’ll find that we do things a little bit differently as a church. Because we believe that church is about people being transformed, and not so much about the rituals and the rules, you’ll find that we don’t always do the typical church things. Let me give you some idea of what to expect:

We want to start by telling you a story. Our faith is a story, the story of God at work in human lives. And stories are one of the best ways that I know of to get people thinking. Stories can change us because they force us to wrestle with what they mean.

Specifically we want to tell you the story of Jesus’ death and resurrection. Appropriate, don’t you think, since it is Easter and all? We’ll be reading it aloud and I want to invite you to just listen and enter into the story. Imagine that you’re there watching it all unfold. If you’ve seen the Passion of the Christ movie, that might be a little easier for you.

But before we dive in, I want you to notice something about the progression of this evening. See, because we’re having our Easter celebration on the Saturday in between Good Friday and Easter, I thought it would make sense to follow that progression from Christ’s death to his resurrection in our service. In the story we tell, in the songs we sing, and in everything we do tonight, we’ll be following the progression from death to life, from despair to hope.

So we begin on a somber note, we begin on the night that Jesus was betrayed. And we’ll begin with a prayer that remembers the sacrifice he made for us on that Good Friday. This prayer was written over 800 years ago, but it is still as true and relevant for us today as it was then.

5:20-5:45  GOOD FRIDAY

Prayer

Walking alone, Lord, you go to your sacrifice
Victim of death, and our death’s mighty conqueror.
What can we say to you, knowing our poverty
You, who have freed us from sin and from slavery?

Ours are the sins, Lord, and we are the guilty ones,
You, in your innocence, take on our punishment;
Grant that our spirits may share in your suffering,
May our compassion respond to your pardoning.

Three sacred days are the time of our sorrowing,
As we endure now the night of our heaviness,
Until the morning restores to us joyfulness;
Christ, newly risen, brings gladness for tearfulness.

Grant us, O Lord, to take part in your suffering,
That we may share in your heavenly victory;
Through these sad days living humbly and patiently,
May we at Eastertide see you smile graciously.
Amen
~ Peter Abelard, AD 1079-1142

Scripture Readings:

• Matt 26:36-46



• Matt 26:47-56



• John 18:28-40



• John 19:1-16



• Luke 23:26-43

Songs:

• Wonderful Cross
• Once Again

Scripture Readings:

• Luke 23:44-49



• Luke 23:50-56

Eucharist

5:45-5:55  Greetings & Bathroom Break

5:55-6:35  HOLY SATURDAY

Sermon & Discussion: From Old Life to New Beginnings

I was listening to the Mix radio station the other night and I caught part of their “Mix and Match” on-air dating program. Have you ever heard it? It’s a dating show where a guy or a girl asks questions of three contestants and then chooses the one they want to date.

One of the questions asked the other night was really interesting. He asked them, “What was the best year of your life?” It was interesting because each of the three female contestants gave the same answer. They all said this past year. And they all gave the same reason why. They all said it was because they had finally made a major change in their life that ended up being the best thing they ever did. They had each given up some part of their old life that was stifling them. One had just moved from the suburbs to the city, and was enjoying all the life and activity suddenly surrounding her. Another had given up a well-paying job to take a much more personally rewarding job as a special needs teacher. The third also said that she had changed jobs, going from a very negative and soul-crushing environment to one where she was stimulated and respected.

For each of these ladies it was the same, giving up their old life and embracing something new was the key to becoming more of who they really wanted to be.

I found those answers so interesting because isn’t that true of all of us? So often the thing we really need is just a chance to start over fresh. We all have these things in our life, this garbage that we carry around with us, and it just weighs us down and keeps us from living life to the full.

Spring Cleaning
I wonder if for some of us it’s time for a spring cleaning; a chance to throw out all the garbage and start over again.

Maybe your life this past year has gotten cluttered with bitterness. Maybe someone hurt you and you just can’t get past it. You can’t forgive and you can’t move on and they won’t say they’re sorry.
Maybe it’s time to gather up all that anger, put it in a box and finally take it out to the dumpster.

Maybe your life has gotten overrun with hopelessness. Maybe you’re in some situation that just looks like a dead end, and you can’t see any way out.
Maybe you need to take a broom to those cobwebs of despair.

Or maybe you’re just too busy. Maybe life has gotten so full of things to do and places to be that there’s no room left for joy. No time for simply savoring the moment.
Maybe what you really need is just to throw open the curtains and let the light back into your life a little bit. Step out onto the front porch and just enjoy the breeze for a while without feeling guilty that you’re not doing, doing, doing.

Or maybe some of us need something even more drastic in our lives than just a surface cleaning. Maybe it’s not just the garbage that’s the problem. Maybe it’s our whole life that is out of whack. Somewhere down the line we started heading in the wrong direction, maybe only slightly off at first, but after a few years and a few thousand miles, that slight error becomes huge and suddenly we find that we’ve somehow ended up in Gary, Indiana when we meant to go to Florida.

Maybe you woke up one morning and realized that you’re not the person you wanted to be. And maybe the only solution at this point is to actually kill our old life, put to death that person that’s not really us, and start to live an entirely new life more in tune with who God really meant us to be.

Cluster Discussion
Now one of the things we value here at this church is interaction and participation. I don’t know about you, but the truth is that most people don’t learn best simply by sitting and listening to someone else talk. We learn best when we can engage with ideas through dialogue and discussion. So I’m going to ask you to do something now that might be a little bit outside your comfort zone. I’m going to ask you to stand up and then find about 5-6 people around you and pull your chairs together into a little cluster. And then I’ll have some questions for you to discuss together. And as you begin to find your cluster, why don’t you take just a minute or two and introduce yourselves to each other and tell each other something about yourself.

Oh, and for the kids, if you’re 12 or under, we’re going to have a couple of kids’ clusters. If you want to, you can gather over there with my wife Julie and my friend Laurie, and they’ll help lead you in some stuff that’ll be basically the same as what the adults are doing except it’ll be just for you guys.

Give a couple of minutes for clusters to form and get acquainted.

Discussion Guidelines
Before I give you the first question for discussion, I just want to lay out a few suggestions for how to make these discussions worthwhile:

First, don’t be afraid to talk and don’t be afraid to be honest. Most of us here don’t know each other, so we’re all kind of in the same boat. I know it’s hard sometimes to talk openly and honestly with people we’ve just met. But this is a safe place. We want this to be the kind of church where you don’t have to hide behind any masks or be afraid to share what’s really inside of you. We all have something valuable to contribute.

Second, let’s really listen to each other. I know that a lot of times I’m tempted when someone else is talking to not really be listening, but instead be thinking about what I’m going to say when they’re done. Do you know what I’m talking about? Let’s try to avoid doing that. Let’s really listen. So anyway, here’s the first question:

- Discussion Question: Describe a time in your life when you had a “new beginning”? Was it difficult to give up your old life? Looking back, was it a good choice?

Survey clusters for responses.

Bad Friday

This whole idea of killing our old selves and entering into a brand new life is a big part of what the Easter story is all about. The story of this weekend, from Good Friday to Easter is a story of passing from death into life: a movement from despair to hope.

Christ’s followers, his disciples, had been full of hope that Jesus would be the one to fulfill all their dreams. They thought that he would overthrow their enemies, set them free from tyranny and establish a new kingdom that would never end. So when those enemies succeed in capturing, torturing and brutally murdering Jesus on a Roman cross, like we just read in scripture, his followers believed that their hopes had failed. Death had won.

We call it Good Friday, but for those disciples it was a very bad Friday.

Do you ever have “bad Fridays”? What I mean is, do you ever have times when it seems like everything has gone wrong? Do you have those times when everything you were working towards blows up in your face? When your best friends fall asleep on you, or worse, stab you in the back? When it seems like the whole world is against you?

When you have those “bad Fridays”, do you ever take a step back and reevaluate where your life is going? Ask yourself what you need to do differently? Let’s do that right now in our clusters:

- Discussion Question: What is one thing that you wish you could change about yourself or your life right now? What is one way in which you’re not yet the person you want to become?

Survey clusters for responses.

Death is Necessary for Life
So that Friday when Jesus was tortured and put to death was a very bad Friday for his handful of followers there in Jerusalem. But what those disciples didn’t know then – what they would come to understand later – was that what happened that Friday had to happen. Jesus had to die in order for new life to come.

There’s this sense in which new life can’t begin until the old has passed away. Don’t we see this all the time – in the cycle of the seasons, in the passing of each generation?

Or how about like a forest fire? Did you know that forest fires are necessary for a forest to survive? Without a fire to come through and wipe out all the old, dead brush, new life and new trees could never spring up.
Life comes from death.

Jesus put it this way: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it.”

If we want new life, if we want to start over, start fresh, we must be willing to give up our old life and follow in this new way, the Way of Christ. To take up the cross is to choose to die to our old selves.

Crucified with Christ
The Apostle Paul writes about this in Galatians 2:20. He says, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.” So there’s this sense in which to be alive with Christ we have to put to death our old selves. We have to crucify that part of ourselves that is not truly who we were meant to be.
We have to kill whatever is holding us back from being fully alive.

We have to kill the envy, the bitterness, the anger, the despair. We have to put aside our lust for money or toys or success. We have to be relentless about cleaning out the garbage in our lives.

Have you ever seen that show on TLC called Clean Sweep where they help a person get rid of their useless junk and actually get organized? They’re ruthless in what they make the person throw away. They ask hard questions, honest questions like “Do you really need a paper-mache rattlesnake you made in seventh grade?”

We need to ask ourselves those hard questions. Or maybe we need others to help ask them for us. And here’s the hard part, we have to have faith that the new life waiting for us once we give up all that garbage is worth the difficulty and pain of getting rid of it. We have to trust that Jesus was telling us the truth when he said he came so we could live life to the full.

What’s Holding You Back?
So what is holding you back? What kinds of things keep you from killing the old and making a new beginning? I mean, why not just do it? That’s the next question I’d like for us to discuss together:

- Question 3 : What kinds of things keep us from making changes in life? What in your old life is holding you back?

Survey clusters for responses.

Sometimes when we dwell on all those things it’s easy to despair. It’s easy to think that change is impossible. We can be tempted to give up hope, just as the disciples had given up hope after Jesus was put to death that Good Friday. But that was Friday, and Sunday was coming. In two short days the disciples’ despair would be turned to joy as they encountered the resurrected Christ.
Death was about to give way to life.

Saturday

But what about Saturday? What about that Sabbath in between Good Friday and Easter when everything seemed to stop, when their world seemed to be at an end? For the disciples Saturday was that place between despair and hope, when they could either give up and go back to their old lives, or else have hope that Jesus actually would rise again as he had told them he would.

And we have that same choice in our own lives. We have a choice to give up and believe that change is impossible, or look ahead in faith to the new life that’s on its way. It’s why Paul said in 2 Corinthians 5, “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!”

And Easter then is the first day of the new creation. It’s our hope for a new beginning, a chance to start a new life that is marked by joy and love and compassion. Because Jesus didn’t stay dead, because he rose from the grave, we can have hope that a new life is possible for us as well.

That’s the last question I have for all of us.

- Question 4: What would a new beginning look like for you personally? What is the kind of person you want to become? What would that person be like? What would they do and say? How would others feel being around them?

Survey clusters for responses.

Stepping Into a New Life

Maybe for a lot of us it’s Saturday right now – that Sabbath day in between Friday and Easter. We’re in that place in between our old life, and the new, exciting, but maybe a little bit scary life that God is inviting you to step into. Scary because it’s unknown, and we each have a choice whether to take that step of faith.

Let me promise you that it will be the best step you ever took. God is inviting us into a better way of life:
A life where you are in touch with what’s deepest inside of you, and can share that with the people around you.
A life where you overflow joy and love and generosity to others, where your life seems to have a larger purpose.

Wide Open
Paul put it this way when he was writing to some of his friends:

“I can’t tell you how much I long for you to enter this wide-open, spacious life. We didn’t fence you in. The smallness you feel comes from within you. Your lives aren’t small, but you’re living them in a small way. I’m speaking as plainly as I can and with great affection. Open up your lives. Live openly and expansively!”

Living openly and expansively! That’s what we’re about at this church. That’s the journey we want to take together. We want to discover together how to live life to the full – how to put our old lives behind us and step into this wide-open, spacious life. And we want to invite you to come along with us. Join us! Join us in living this Way of Christ!

6:35-6:55  EASTER

Scripture Readings:

• John 20:1-10



• John 20:11-18



• John 20:19-29

Songs:

• My Redeemer Lives
• Lord Reign In Me

The Lord’s Prayer

6:55-7:00 Invitation to Involvement & Announcements

Closing Prayer

Christ our life, you are alive
in the beauty of the earth
in the rhythm of the seasons
in the mystery of time and space
Alleluia
Christ our life, you are alive
in the tenderness of touch
in the heartbeat of intimacy
in the insights of solitude
Alleluia
Christ our life, you are alive
in the creative possibility
of the dullest conversation
the dreariest task
the most threatening event
Alleluia
Christ our life, you are alive
to offer re-creation
to every unhealed hurt
to every deadened place
to every damaged heart
Alleluia
You set before us a great choice.
Therefore we choose life.
The dance of resurrection soars and surges
through the whole creation.
It sets the gift of bread and wine upon our table.
This is grace, dying we live.
So let us live.
~ by Kathy Galloway of the Iona Community

6:30-6:35 Meet & Greet
6:35-6:50 Introductions & Get to Know You Questions:
“What food can you not say ‘no’ to?”
6:50-7:00  Opening Prayer and Making Music Together
7:00-7:40  Sermon/Discussion: The Temptation of Christ

Introduction
o Past few weeks have focused on Jesus’ kingdom message and the call to repent and live Jesus’ Way. Now time to get personal and talk about what tempts us away from living in the Way of Christ.
o The temptation in the wilderness story comes right after Christ’s baptism. He goes from a high to a low. And God’s Spirit led him there. God brings wilderness experiences into our lives for a reason – to test us and make us stronger.

Read Luke 4:1-13

o What themes stand out to you from this passage?
o What questions do these themes raise in your mind?

The First Temptation (v. 3-4)
o What exactly is Jesus being tempted with here? (Lust of the flesh and/or doubting God’s goodness and love for him.)
o Have you ever been tempted to doubt God’s love for you because of suffering?

• What else causes you to doubt your identity as a beloved child of God?

o How can we effectively resist temptations that go after our physical desires?

The Second Temptation (v. 5-8)
o What is Jesus being tempted with here? (power & wealth – imagine a rookie politician trying to hold onto their principles)
o If Jesus is supposed to ultimately rule the world then what’s wrong with giving into this temptation? What is the difference between the path to power and authority that the devil is offering and the Way that Christ was meant to follow?

• Have you ever felt tempted to let the end justify your means? Have you ever though something like, “Think of all the good I could accomplish if I just…”?
• What are some ways that Christians today sometimes use the wrong means to accomplish kingdom goals?

o Has greed or materialism ever been a strong temptation for you? (Reality TV: How far would you go for $1 million?)

• How does our society feed this temptation? What can we do to resist it?

The Third Temptation (v. 9-12)
o Why would throwing himself off the Temple be a temptation for Jesus? Is it another test of God’s goodness or an invitation to put on a show and prove his Messiahship?
o Have you ever been tempted to try and prove your worth to others and focus on making yourself look good? What is the danger in this?

• Do you ever feel like you need the affirmation of others to feel valuable?

o Why would it be a bad thing for Jesus to win followers through a dramatic display of his power? How would that fly in the face of the kingdom’s values?

• What are ways that Christians today try to win people through dramatic displays of power? Do we ever put God to the test?

A More Opportune Time (v. 13)
o Will we ever stop being tempted in this life? What helps you deal w/temptations?
o Compare Jesus temptation with the temptation in the Garden of Eden. Eve distorted God’s words while Jesus used them to resist temptation. How can listening clearly to God’s Words help us resist temptation? Does this mean that if we simply memorize a lot of verses we won’t sin? Why or why not?
o Hebrews 2:18 & 4:14-16 tells us that Jesus’ temptations allow him to empathize with our weaknesses and help us when we are being tempted. He understands how hard it is!

- Personal Journaling: What are your biggest temptations right now?

• Each person should have a stone given to them at the beginning of the church service. After journaling invite them to surrender their temptations to God by placing the stone in a clear glass bowl of water.

Prayer

7:45-7:50  Break
7:50-8:15  God Things
8:15-8:25  Eucharist & the Lord’s Prayer
8:25-8:30 Announcements & Invitation to Involvement

Benediction

6:30-6:35 Meet & Greet
6:35-6:50 Introductions w/ Get to Know You Question:
“If you could have one “do-over” in life, what would it be?”
6:50-6:55 Opening Prayer and Song: Lifesong
6:55-8:00  Discussion: Water & Fire

Introduction

o Working through Luke to discover 1) what is the Kingdom of God like? (i.e. what is God’s dream for the way the world could be?); and 2) what is the Way of Christ? (i.e. what is our place and task within God’s revolutionary dream? How can we help make it a reality?)

o We’re on Luke 3 and we need to back up because to this point we’ve actually been ignoring a major character in the story, John the son of Zechariah, aka John the Baptist.

• Not called “Baptist” because he was the first hellfire and brimstone preacher. Did preach repentance and judgment but didn’t quite look like a typical Baptist. John the Baptizer is a better name.
• Jesus’ cousin, birth also foretold by an angel. Father’s commission on him stated in Luke 1:76-79. Possibly orphaned early on, grew up living in the deserts of Judea (cf. Luke 1:80), probably with the Essenes – a radical religious separatist group (Jewish version of separatist fundamentalists – e.g. your socially awkward cousins who live out in the country and homeschool their kids to protect them from “the world”). Would have grown up with a sense of calling and expectation of the coming Messiah (liberator King) and a focus on Israel’s current sinfulness.

Read Luke 3:1-22

v. 1-2 – Political Context of John’s Message

o Once again (as in 2:1) Luke mentions the political situation. This is more than just trivia. He is deliberately reminding us that Luke is speaking to a people who are oppressed by the Romans and ruled by corrupt leaders. They are longing for a Messiah to bring liberation and reestablish the kingdom. So when they hear about this wild guy preaching in the desert they think “Maybe he’s the one. Let’s go find out.”

o The reference to the “wilderness” would put Jewish hearers in mind of two things: 1) prophets call from the wilderness, therefore John is a revival of the prophetic tradition – God is speaking once more! And 2) they would have thought of the wilderness experience of Exodus, when God led his people to liberation from slavery. Thus John’s story is also about this bigger story.

v. 3 – Baptism of Repentance for the Forgiveness of Sins

- Discussion Question: If someone were to preach to you today “repent and be baptized”, what would you think they were telling you to do?

o Repentance literally means to “turn around” or “return”, as when the OT prophets called the people to “return to the Lord” as an unfaithful wife would return to her husband. It means that your life has gotten off track and needed to start heading in a totally new direction. (Bumper sticker: “Remember who you wanted to be”)

• Doesn’t necessarily mean “give up your sins and have a religious conversion experience”. (Tell Josephus’ story of going to the revolutionary leader and demanding that he give up his rebellion by inviting him to “repent and believe in me”.) It means give up your agenda (for your life, your kingdom) and trust in the Lord’s agenda. In other words, start living differently.
• Repentance might start with guilt and confession, but that’s not really the point. Focusing on the guilt either 1) paralyzes us with self-hatred, or else 2) causes us to think that the only point is getting forgiveness… and then stopping there. The point is to turn around and start living a new way of life.
• Repentance is way bigger than cutting out a few sinful behaviors. It means radically altering the rhythm of your life – your habits and disciplines, your thoughts and desires, your interactions with others, your plans for the future. Everything changes.
• Repentance is both individual and communal, because we’re all connected. We can’t just say “It’s my problem. I’m not hurting anyone else.” because anything that keeps you from being fully who God created you to be, diminishes all of us. It keeps you from being able to fully give and share yourself with others. We need you to be fully you, or else we can’t fully be “we”. We’re all connected. So repentance is something that we do both to get our own lives back on track, and so we can give ourselves more wholly to other people.

- Personal Reflection & Group Sharing: Try to remember a time when you realized your life was headed in the wrong direction, that you weren’t who you wanted to be. What did it take to make you realize that and what did you have to do to turn around and start living differently?

o Forgiveness is the starting point of repentance. Repentance doesn’t earn our forgiveness; it’s freely given. We are forgiven, therefore we can live differently (cf. Ephesians 2:8-10). We are offered the chance to come clean, to start over fresh.

• Baptism is a symbol of this cleansing. The physical act doesn’t cause our forgiveness. It is a symbol, a sacramental act that expresses what is happening inside us. It’s performance art. We need symbols and rituals to express deeper realities because we are physical and spiritual beings. We express the spiritual through the physical.

- Object Lesson: Take a wash cloth and dip it in the water. Wash your hands and your face as a reminder that you have been offered forgiveness and cleansing from all your past mistakes. If you’ve been baptized, use this to relive & remember the significance of your baptism.

5 Minute Break

v. 4-6 – Preparing the Way for the Lord

o John was preparing the hearts of the people for the coming Messiah (King). The symbols of raising and lowering and smoothing/straightening also give a hint that the coming Kingdom will overturn the usual power systems and hierarchies. It won’t be what people are expecting. The powerful and the religious won’t get it, while the “sinners” and outcasts will. It’s an “Up-side Down Kingdom”. A kingdom for the lowly, the weak, the marginalized, the losers.

• Sadly this doesn’t often reflect the present reality of the church. Too often the church seems to be full of the rich, the powerful, the well-connected, the pious. Let’s make sure that our church is a place for “losers”.

v. 7-9 – Words of Judgment

o Matthew’s gospel tells us that John is speaking specifically to the Pharisees (the ultra-pious/religious people) and Sadducees (the well-connected, influential people) when he speaks these harsh words of judgment. He takes them to task for their motivations.

• “You brood of vipers!” – you can tell right away that this is a feel good sermon.
• “Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?” (“coming wrath” = the day of reckoning when they expected that God would overthrow the Romans and any unfaithful Jews) – Why are you really here? Are you just doing it ‘cuz it’s popular? Are you serious or are you just following the crowd? (Ask if anyone has had this experience with religion, just going along because it was the socially expected thing to do.)
• “Produce fruit in keeping with repentance” – Are you really “repentant”, i.e. turning around and living differently, or are you just coming to get your “spiritual high”, to get forgiveness but then turning around and doing the exact same things when you get home. (Youth retreats are a perfect example of this.) It’s crazy to think we can just say we’re sorry, have a religious experience and expect our lives to be different after that. Albert Einstein: “Insanity is the belief that one can get different results by doing the same thing.” God doesn’t just want our confession, he wants our lives to be different. (Mom always used to say, “Sorry isn’t really sorry if you don’t stop doing it.”)
• “children of Abraham” – i.e. it’s not about belonging to the right group, being the right religion, having the right heritage or social identity. God’s not looking at your label, he’s looking at your fruit.
• “The axe is at the root of the trees” – frightening words of judgment.

- Discussion Question: Imagine you’re one of the people there hearing these harsh words of judgment for the first time. How do they make you feel? What is your initial, gut-reaction to what John is saying to you?

o These words are as much for the whole people of Israel as they are for individuals. God is warning Israel that they are not living up to his calling to be a light to nations, an example of compassion and love for the poor and oppressed. The chopping and burning shouldn’t be interpreted as God sending people to Hell. John is telling Israel they’re in danger of losing their special status as God’s people of light and blessing for others. They are failing in their calling so God is about to chose someone else to “git-r-done”.

v. 10-14 – What should we do?

o The people want to know, practically, what should we do? What are the fruits of repentance? What is this new way that God wants us to live? And John says “Here’s what it looks like: for those who have more to share what they have with those who have less.” He gives them specific, practical advice. And it’s not to be more religious, to pray more, to go to the Temple more. It’s to share what you have with others. What does God really want? What is this new way of life that He’s calling everyone to? To give to those who are in need. To live generously and with compassion.

• Two specific groups ask John what they should do: tax collectors and soldiers. Both were collaborators, people who worked for the enemy. According to the Pharisees they were problem in the first place. They were the reason the kingdom wasn’t coming. And yet they are the ones most interested in what true repentance looks like. They are the ones who really want to know how to live differently. (the Upside-Down Kingdom!) And John tells them, you don’t have to wait. The kingdom can start now. You don’t have to belong to the right political group, or quit your job b/c the kingdom isn’t about overthrowing the Romans, it’s about a new way of life that is accessible to all people. A way of justice and love and generosity.

- Discussion Question: What would John say to you in your situation/occupation? What would he say to our society as a whole?

v. 15-18 – The Refining Fire

o The people were hoping that John was the Messiah they longed for but John was clear that he was merely preparing the way for Jesus. John realized that he could only call people to an outward change of behavior. Jesus would come with the Fire of the Holy Spirit which would cleanse us from within.

• Wheat and Chaff image: The “wheat” and “chaff” are not “good people” vs. “bad people”. All of us are parts wheat and parts chaff. The Fire is a refining fire, not a destructive fire. Jesus is coming to help us truly repent, to change not just our behaviors but our hearts.
• This is the “good news”. John’s message of repentance and life change is not opposed to the gospel of grace and forgiveness. They go hand in hand. The good news is that Jesus is coming to enable us to live a new and fuller life. A life of generosity, compassion, and love.

v. 19-20 – Challenging the Powers

o John shows the people that the current king of Israel is really a false king because he doesn’t live according to the ways of the kingdom. In what happens to John we see that when you start to live according to a new way of up-side down values you are going to inevitably come into conflict with the powers of our society. If we truly start to share with each other, we’re going to conflict with the powers of consumerism and materialism that rule our society. If we stop trying to exploit others and exploit the system for every dime we can get out of it, we’re going to run up against the forces of cutthroat capitalism and brutal efficiency that govern our economy. If we start to prioritize relationships: friends and family, we’re going to conflict with the forces in our society that tell us we should spend ourselves on career success and wealth and influence. If we start to value and love the outcasts of our society: the welfare moms, the illegal immigrants, the bums on city street corners, the troubled teens – we are going to anger those who don’t think we should waste our time or resources on those kinds of people.

- Discussion: What other ways might living the ways of the kingdom bring us into conflict with the powers of our society?

o Of course, when I say that we will come into conflict with the powers of society, I’m not saying that we should seize power ourselves and try to force others into our way of life. I don’t think the Religious Right’s idea of a Christian theocracy where we legislate our morality on everyone else is at all what John or Jesus had in mind. Their message has social and political implications, but their kingdom was not just another kingdom of violence and power and domination. Rather we demonstrate through our lives a different way to be human – a way of peace, love, compassion, generosity, and justice. We start living as part of this new kingdom, this new society right now, in the midst of the old power structures.

v. 21-22 – Jesus: the Perfect Penitent

o Jesus came to be baptized by John even though he was the one person who didn’t need to repent and didn’t need forgiveness. So why did he do it? Christ was identifying himself with Israel and with us, doing for us what we can’t really do for ourselves.

• We are all in need of repentance. Each of us let our lives get off track from the life of fullness and love that God designed us for. And yet none of us are able to repent perfectly. It’s too hard, too painful; we are too rebellious. As C.S. Lewis said, “Only a good man can truly repent, but only a bad man needs to.” So Jesus comes to do for us, as our representative so to speak, what we are incapable of doing for ourselves, to show us how.
• The encouragement here is that even when we fail to perfectly live this new life of repentance, there is still grace. We are going to fail. We are going to get off track from time to time. The point is not to get it perfect. The point is to realize that there is grace for our mistakes and just keep trying to get back headed in the right direction whenever we realize that we’ve started to get off course. God knew that we wouldn’t be able to repent perfectly, so he came and did it for us.

Close with a prayer of repentance by Malcolm Boyd:

God:
Take Fire and burn our guilt and our lying hypocrisies
Take Water and wash away our brothers’ blood which we have caused to be shed.
Take hot sunlight and dry the tears of those we have hurt, and heal the wounded souls, minds and bodies.
Take love and root it in our hearts, so that brotherhood may grow,transforming the dry desert of our prejudices and hatreds.
Take our imperfect prayers and purify them, so that we mean what we pray and are prepared to give ourselves to you along with our words, through Jesus Christ, who did not disdain to take our humaness upon himself and live among us, sharing our life, our joys, and our pains.
Amen

8:00-8:25 Worship

• Labyrinth Experience – each person is given a sheet of paper with a Chartres labyrinth on it. They are invited to trace this with a pencil, inward and then back out. On the inward journey they reflect on their sins and need for repentance and forgiveness. On the outward journey they reflect on how they can begin to live in a new way.
• Eucharist
• Lord’s Prayer

8:25-8:30 Announcements & Invitation to Involvement

Benediction

6:30-6:40 Meet & Greet
6:40-6:50 Introductions & Get To Know You Question:
“Where would you rather be this time of year?”
6:50-8:25 Christmas In March
Have each reader/participant light a tea-light candle (placed in a display in the center of the circle) at the beginning of each bulleted element.

Observation (40 min)

• Introduction & Reading: John 1:1-5,9-14,16-18
• Opening Prayer
• Reading: Luke 2:1-7
• Reflection: Background and Comments on the Text
  Obstacles to truly understanding the significance of Christ’s birth:
  1. Familiarity – heard it so many times we become numb to its power and significance.
  2. The Christmas Season itself with all its busy-ness and sentimentality can get in the way of really looking at the story in itself. We are so often told what the “True Meaning of Christmas” is, that we actually miss the “true meaning”.
  Luke 2 is about the coming of a new King that will overturn the powers of this world.
  1. Luke reminds us of the political significance of this with his first verse about Caesar Augustus. He reminds us that Caesar is Lord and King and claims to rule the whole world as the “son of god”. (T. Wright, p. 23)
  2. Then he shows us that Jesus’ birth will challenge the arrogance of Caesar through the words of the angels “…a Savior has been born to you. He is the Messiah (i.e. King), the Lord (Master/Ruler/Sovereign & God).”
  3. Jesus revolutionary kingdom goes beyond mere political liberation however. He has come to liberate us from all the forces that oppress us: from sin itself and all it’s devastation, both personally and corporately.
  It’s like the Matrix:
  1. Humanity is enslaved and doesn’t even realize it, and Jesus is “the One” who is promised to come and set us free from our enslavement by entering into it himself and asserting power over it.
  2. Just like Neo, Jesus’ ultimate role is not just to liberate one group of people (Israel/”Zion”), but to free all people (Jews & Gentiles/humans & machines) by overcoming evil and corruption (sin/Agent Smith) and bringing peace.
  3. Like Neo, Jesus kingdom comes through weakness and suffering. Weakness in the form of a peasant human child, and suffering through the cross.
  Jesus comes into the humblest of circumstances.
  1. Born to an outcast peasant girl (Mary & Joseph’s offering in the Temple was the offering of the poor & they stayed in the stable b/c their family would not put them up); born to an oppressed people group; announced to Shepherds (the bottom dregs of society), and to Magi (outsiders – pagans & Gentiles).
  2. We are shown that the Kingdom of God comes not through power and influence and wealth. It comes through weakness, humility and poverty. These are the only things that can succeed against the weapons of the world.
  3. We are also shown that it is for everyone, not just people who belong to the right group of people (the right race or religion or economic status).So, as we contemplate the Christmas story, let’s think about it as the announcement of a new world order, a new revolutionary way of life. Because of this child, everything is going to be different. All your best dreams for life and for the world will come true. But it won’t come in the way you expect. In fact, often it will seem like evil is winning, like things are getting worse, like the Kingdom is just a foolish dream. It is at those times when the Kingdom is actually nearest, for the Kingdom comes through weakness and sacrifice and suffering. (“If it wasn’t for the night…”)
• Song: Silent Night
• Song: Away in the Manger
• Entering Into the Story: Luke 2:8-20
  As the passage is read, do the following:
  1. Place yourself somewhere in the story; become a character or object within the scene.
  2. Experience the scene with your senses. As that character or object what do you see, hear, smell, taste, or touch?
  3. Experience it with your emotions. If you were really there as that character or object, what would you be feeling/thinking/wondering?
  4. Write about it; then discuss your “experiences” with the group.
• Song: Angels We Have Heard On High

Interpretation (20 min)

• Group Sharing & Discussion:
  Christmas means so many things, in so many ways, to so many different people. What does Christmas mean to you? What have been your most meaningful Christmas experiences? What do you treasure the most about the story of Christmas?
• Song: Come Thou Long Expected Jesus

Application (25 min)

• Reading: Luke 2:21-40
• Reflection & Group Discussion:
  Christmas is a time of year when people are more prone to acts of charity, kindness and acceptance. What examples of this spring to your mind? How can we begin to practice the Christmas spirit year round?
• Reading: 1 John 4:7-12,19-21

Response (15 min)

• Song: O Come, O Come Emmanuel
• Responsive Reading: Isaiah 53
• Eucharist
• The Lord’s Prayer

8:25-8:35 Announcements & Invitation to Involvement

Closing Thoughts: Rowan Williams Reading

6:30-6:40  Meet & Greet
6:40-6:50  Introductions (“What are you reading/listening to right now?”)
6:50-7:10  Prayer and Lectio Divina (Luke 1:46-55)

7:10-7:55  Discussion

How to Read the Bible

• As the story of God interacting with real people in real times and places to affect the course of human history, with relevance and significance for our own lives here and now (though not always in a 1-for-1 kind of way).
• With recognition that it is a complex document that requires attention to the cultural, historical and textual context. Question your own lenses and try to see it from multiple perspectives.
• With humility, realizing that we will never entirely figure it out, and that we should never try to tame it or ignore it.

Introduction to Luke

• The Way of Christ and the Kingdom of God will be our guiding themes (our “lenses”) throughout this book. We are looking at the gospel of Luke to catch a vision of what God wants to do in this world and the life Jesus wants us to live.
• This book was written by a Gentile (non-Jewish) scholar to a Gentile aristocrat about a Jewish Messiah (i.e. King). To understand Luke’s gospel we have to understand it’s Jewish context, but we should also take hope in the fact that the major theme of the book is that everyone is now included in God’s promises – not just Gentiles, but the poor, women, children, outcasts, slaves, and “sinners”. We are all invited to sit at the table and join the feast. The Kingdom is for everyone. God’s deliverance is for everyone.
• Read Luke 3:4-6 – it’s about an up-side down kingdom where all the values of the world are turned on their head.
• Chapter one opens with the Jewish people ruled over and oppressed by a foreign power. It seems like God’s promises have failed them. They were expecting God to do something soon to set them free and re-establish the kingdom, but there were lots of competing ideas about how this would happen and what the kingdom would be like.

Mary’s Song

Read Luke 1:46-56
1. What for Mary is the significance of Jesus’ birth? Is her reaction more personal (“I’m pregnant!”) or corporate (“God is sending his Messiah!”)? What does her reaction tell us about the kind of person Mary was, what she cared about and what she longed for?

2. What do you think it would be like to be an oppressed people, ruled over by foreigners in your own homeland? How would you feel about your oppressors? What kind of kingdom would you be longing for? Would you be willing to do whatever it took to win freedom?

• Who are oppressed peoples in our own world today? What kinds of things do they suffer? In what ways might their experiences be similar to what Mary experienced in her day?

3. How does Mary describe her expectation of what God’s Kingdom will be like? What parts were most meaningful to you:

- vs. 50: What is God’s mercy like? When have you experienced it in your own life?

• Why would those who already fear God still need his mercy? Aren’t they the “good people”?

- vs. 51: What kind of “mighty deeds” might Mary have in mind? In what ways has God scattered the proud, whether in Mary’s day or in our own?

- vs. 52: Do you think God really does bring down the powerful and lift up the humble? Can you give any examples of this?

• Why does it sometimes seem so much the opposite in our world? How do we make sense of that contradiction?
• How might we begin to live in a way that reverses the hierarchies of power that rule over our own world?

- vs. 53: If God fills the hungry and sends the rich away empty, why do we see so much of the opposite in the world around us?

• How does God fill the hungry? What tools does he use?
• How would these kingdom values, where the rich go hungry and the poor are blessed, challenge the values and assumptions of the world we live in?
• Are there any ways we might personally or corporately have to change to live in accordance with these new values.

4. What might be some creative ways we as a church community can begin to live in accordance with these up-side down kingdom values that Mary proclaims?

5. Two closing questions:

• What difference will this passage make in your own life?
• What difference should it make for our church community?

7:55-8:25  Worship

• “God Things” (Group sharing of where they’ve seen God at work lately.)
• Song: Light of the World (Here I Am to Worship)
• Eucharist
• The Lord’s Prayer

8:25-8:30 Announcements & Invitation to Involvement

Benediction – Ephesians 3:20-21

6:30-6:45  Meet & Greet
6:45-7:05  Introductions, Opening Scripture (Acts 2:17-21) & Prayer
7:05-7:50  Discussion

Introduction

• The Way of Christ cannot be pursued in isolation. No “Lone Rangers”. The Way of Christ is a journey we take together. We are called to a community.
• This community is about a heart connection with God and each other, not just meaningless rituals and going through the religious motions. However, a community is also defined by certain practices that bind them together.
• Let’s discuss together what kind of community we want to be. What is our purpose? What are our practices?

Have each person individually brainstorm answers to the following questions and then share ideas together:

What is the purpose of church?
What kinds of things should churches be doing?
What should our church specifically be doing?

Read Acts 2:42-47 – What purposes & practices do you observe here?

• Let’s select a few of these qualities (from the brainstorming or the reading) and discuss how they might get lived out practically through our church.
• Discuss: When have you observed the church at its best? When have you seen other churches live out these qualities we’ve talked about?

Read Exodus 35:4-5, 10, 20-22, 30-34 & 36:1 – Each person has something to contribute to the community that God has gifted them with specially through the Holy Spirit.

• What might your role personally be in helping our church become this kind of community? What is your gift?
• Yarn Illustration – take a ball of yarn and start tossing it around the circle. Before each person tosses it, they should hold onto a part of the string so that it creates web. When everyone has a corner of the web have everyone pull it taut. Then have someone drop their part of the string. Notice what happens to the rest of the web. This is an illustration of how a church community is and why it is essential for each individual to contribute their gifts to the whole.

7:50-8:25 Worship

• Silent Reflection & Journaling
• Song: Holy Is the Lord
• Eucharist
• The Lord’s Prayer

8:25-8:30 Announcements & Invitation to Involvement

Benediction – Ephesians 3:20-21

Read Luke 24:13-35

The story of the disciples on the road to Emmaus is the story of two disciples of Christ who were in despair, who had hoped that Jesus would be the one to restore the kingdom to Israel, and instead saw him crucified at the hands of their oppressors. As they walk, they are talking, discussing their doubts and their questions, and along the way they are joined by a stranger. This stranger questions them, gets them to lay bare their souls, and then proceeds to help them think about their questions in a new way, helps them look at scripture and God’s story in a new way. In short, he helps them see that they were struggling because they had been living in the wrong story this whole time. As they return home they invite this stranger in, invite him to share a meal with them, and it is only then that they discover that it has been the risen Christ with them the whole way. This Emmaus Road experience, I think, is a good metaphor for our own spiritual journey at times.

Discuss the following questions together:

What are some of the stories that our society tells us we should live by?
What are some of the wrong stories you personally sometimes find yourself living in?
What effect does living in the wrong story have on your life?

Have there been times when Christ was present in your life even though you didn’t recognize him at the time?

What are some of the unexpected ways we might encounter Christ?

Posted in Luke, Luke 24, spiritual journey Tagged: Emmaus Road, Luke 24, spiritual journey ]]> http://emergingsermons.wordpress.com/2008/10/23/on-the-road-to-emmaus-luke-2413-35/feed/ 0 Mike Clawson