WELCOME & ANNOUNCEMENTS
HYMN # 60 (Songs For a Gospel People) I Come With Joy
CALL TO WORSHIP:
One: O Lord, we’ve heard the old, old story
and we confess our sin of indifference.
All: God, jolt our lives to turn and look at You once more.
One: Give us the ears to hear your amazing story
that God would become one of us, living among us, teaching us, sitting down at table with us, breaking bread and drinking wine with us, and then dying among us, for us. Amazing grace!
All: O Lord, we ask for your presence this day. Brush against us when we least expect it. Touch us with your Spirit. Take us by the shoulders and shake us awake to your incredible truth.
One: We are your people and you are our God. Forgive our faithlessness, O faithful God! And see beyond our apathy, our thoughtlessness, our self-centredness, our wrong choices.
See into our heart, for you are our Treasure.
All: We pledge once more to give to those who need us, that this world might be more human. We pledge to do away with indifference. We pledge to tell the old, old story in new
life-changing ways! For Jesus’ sake. Amen
HYMN # 44 (SFGP) Part of the Family
PRAYER OF APPROACH/CONFESSION:
One: Loving God, we have squandered many of the gifts that you have lavished on us:
All: Gifts of creation, gifts of friendship, gifts of trust, gifts of family
One: Loving God, we have cut ourselves off from your love and security.
All: We have followed our own self-interest, lived for the moment, forgotten our roots.
One: But, Loving God, we have realized our own failures, we have turned for our faithful home.
All: We are amazed that you still embrace us, dumbfounded that you will forgive us.
One: Loving God, we will join in the family celebration you provide for us.
All: Rejoicing in your generosity, determined to make a fresh start.
One: O Holy God ….
(continues on the back page of the bulletin)
HYMN # 8 (SFGP) Help Us Accept Each Other
SCRIPTURE READING: Joshua 5: 9 – 12 & Psalm 32
THE STORY STOOL
HYMN Jesus Loves Me
Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so;
Little ones to him belong, in his love we shall be strong.
Yes, Jesus loves me! Yes, Jesus loves me!
Yes, Jesus loves me! The Bible tells me so.
SCRIPTURE READING: 2Corinthians 5:16-21 & Luke 15: 1 – 32
CHOIR ANTHEM: Trust in the Lord
SERMON:
Our readings for this week are reminders of the transformative power of a new beginning and a warm welcome ... The Old Testament reading has Joshua leading the people into the Promised Land. The old generation has passed away, Moses has died and the people are beginning to enter the land long promised to them ... Paul is writing to the Church at Corinth and reminding them that God's ways are not our ways, and that in faith we are to start over by leaving the past behind and starting fresh ... The Psalmist, even in the midst of abandonment an distress trusts in God and God's presence to see him through ...
Then we turn to the Gospel readings of Luke for today come from the “Lost chapter” of Luke … the lost sheep, the lost coin and the lost and prodigal son … the transformative experience of being lost and found ...
It’s a powerful chapter with profound and powerful examples for the listener … The primary lesson of the chapter is – don’t give up … keep looking – you will find it …
Then the secondary lesson is one directed at the lost one. That lesson is – don’t give up – you will be found and you will be welcomed home … and there will be great rejoicing and celebrating when that moment comes …
And the third lesson is a reminder that when all seems lost – God has not given up on you, and God will not leave you abandoned nor forgotten.
The experience of being lost, or of losing something we value is a universal one. All of us have at some point in our lives, been in that place where the story Jesus shared with his disciples is not only understandable, but very personal. Most of us know that moment of celebration when the lost are once again found. Whether it is something we have lost, or when we ourselves have felt lost.
But beyond that – the story of the prodigal son is a story about the transformation that comes when we seriously live the moment where we experience the fullness of Grace that Jesus is so clearly speaking of when the father welcomes back his lost child. It is a moment of boundless, limitless grace. Grace that arises from a love that is so profound and generous it is simply breathtaking.
It is also a very uncomfortable place to be seeing and hearing about that abundant grace if we are NOT the prodigal who is welcomed home … It’s uncomfortable to be the eldest brother … the loyal one who stayed home and worked hard and feels very much jilted by his father’s action.
On Friday morning as we were discussing the story of the Prodigal son and contemplating what it would be like to be each of the characters in the story I had a sudden realization that much of the Prodigal story is found in the cartoon movie – “The Lion King.”
The movie the Lion King opens with the birth of the new lion cub Simba who will in time become the King of the Pride lands when his father Mufasa dies. Simba is anointed by the shaman mandrill ape Rafiki. The problem is the jealous younger brother of Mufasa, Scar – Scar is not handling the birth of his nephew well, nor is he handling his moving down to second in place for the crown …
The first spoken words in the movie are Scar’s, when he captures a mouse and says – “Life isn’t fair …” Life isn’t fair – a harsh lesson to teach our children in the opening of a cartoon – but in the cartoon universe, it will NOT be Scar and his evil minions who prevail at the end of the day. Life may not be fair – but in the movie, it IS just.
As the movie progresses, Scar attempts to trick Simba into situations that would hopefully result in the death of the young cub. When these attempts fails, he then orchestrates a stampede of the vast herd of zebras and wildebeests, and watches as Simba is caught out in the middle of the stampede. Mufasa, the true king races to rescue his son …
Mufassa is successful in rescuing Simba, but as he clings to the side of the ravine begging Scar to help him – Scar slams his claws down on his brother’s paws and sending him sprawling into the stampeding herd …
The next scene has Simba approaching the battered body of his father … Scar steps out of the gloom and accuses his nephew of killing Mufasa … Simba, trusting his uncle believes that he killed his own father and flees the pride … the pride lands and everything he knows …
Scar becomes king and tells the pride that Simba and Mufasa have both died … and Scar holds that horrible secret that it was he who caused the death of the king and who drove the tiny cub away from his home.
Simba becomes the prodigal son – heading out in to the wilderness – homeless, unloved, and feeling utterly rejected … He leaves the pride lands to his uncle Scar who installs himself as King, and then proceeds to pillage and destroy the pride lands and the food supply.
Simba is many miles away having been rescued by a merekat and a wart hog who take him in and befriend him. Simba lives with that deep dark secret – the knowledge that he killed his father and he had failed his family – his pride.
Then one day his childhood friend, searching for food finds Simba and asks him why he can’t come back and be the True King … Simba struggles with the news from home and the knowledge that his family is suffering by his absence. One night as Simba is trying to decide what to do the Shaman returns … Rafiki challenges Simba … the climactic scene finds Rafiki standing on the savannah where Simba says: “Looks like the winds are changing …”
Rafiki replies: “Change is Good …”
Simba, then says – “But it’s not easy. I know what I have to do, but … going back means having to face my past. I’ve been running from it for so long …”
Suddenly Rafiki cranks Simba in the head with his shaman staff …
“Ow, what was that for?” asks Simba.
“It doesn’t matter … It’s in the past” replied Rafiki with a laugh.
Simba: “Yeah but it still hurts …”
“Yes,” says Rafiki, “the past can hurt. But the way I see it, you can either run from it or learn from it.”
Rafiki then takes another swing with his staff at Simba, and this time, Simba ducks, he grabs the stick, tosses it aside and begins to run for home ...
Simba heads home … He has to face his family – his pride, and he must fight and defeat his uncle, but with his life in the balance, Scar confesses to Simba that it was he – Scar – who caused Mufasa’s death … and in that moment Simba summons the strength he needs to vanquish his uncle and to become King …
In the case of the Lion King, the Prodigal Son forms his own welcome by defeating his Uncle and reclaiming his place in the Pride Lands … but the leaving behind of the past is key to both the Biblical Prodigal and the Disney Prodigal.
In the scriptures, the Prodigal son had gone as low as one can go in the Jewish faith. He was a Jew feeding pigs, and as if that wasn’t bad enough, he was even contemplating eating the discarded food that he was charged with feeding TO the pigs … You really can’t get much lower than that in the Jewish faith.
Simba got as low as you could get – he believed he had killed his own father. He was disgraced and an outcast. He was the victim of manipulation and lies … he had been cast out and rejected … but by learning from his past, as Rafiki said, he is able to return and reclaim his place … Simba not only confronted the past – he set the record straight – both within himself, and also within the pride. Simba not only learned from the past, he rose above it and expelled from the pride lands those who did not have the best interests of the pride at heart. Simba was welcomed in because his motives were pure and just and right …
But that could only happen because the pride – his family – rejected Scar and his lies, and embraced Simba in spite of his absence and heralded him as their leader …
In the Lion King there is no older brother to stand in the way … but in Jesus’ story the older brother stands outside the story fuming and resenting the warm welcome received by his brother … The older brother knows, or he think he knows what his brother has done with his share of the estate. Meanwhile, as the brother stayed home and worked hard and was the “good” son, his brother frittered away his money on wine, women and song – so too speak … The oldest brother got nothing, and the youngest brother is welcomed like a conquering hero …
The oldest brother never was given a kid to roast with his friends, yet his ne’er do well brother is given the fatted calf and welcomed by a party …
The lesson – if we dare to hear it – is, as Paul says - that God’ ways are truly not our ways, and what may seem unfair to us is an expression of grace by God and God’s limitless care and compassion …
It is easy to be the Prodigal, and to be welcomed in … it is easy to be the older brother and to stand outside and grumble and snip … but it is harder to be the father and to welcome home the prodigal without slighting the eldest son … The father knows that there is more than enough for everyone – the challenge for him is to open the eyes and heart of the grumbling eldest son to the simple FACT that there is MORE than enough for everyone … The estate is there to be shared – the abundance is there to be given … The older brother WILL get his share … and the younger brother will work to earn his way back … it will work out …
The challenge for us is to recognize when we are the Prodigal … when we are the eldest son … and when we are the Father …Then we strive to to balance our care, and to also have the vision and the daring to value, appreciate, welcome and celebrate those we may simply take for granted …
Simba went home and set the record straight and laid to rest the lies and stories and falsehoods about him … The Prodigal in Jesus’ story came home and owed up to his missteps and mistakes … The unknown in this story is the eldest son. Our story stops and so we don’t know what happened to him. Perhaps he came in and joined in the party … perhaps the father in his care and generosity threw a party for him … perhaps he just walked away with his share of the estate …
We simply do not know …
What we do however know is this: There is a place at the banquet for both sons … The lost was found and will be rejoiced over … but the remnant who has been there needs to be celebrated too … and that may be the hardest lesson for the father to face …
The past is what it is … we can’t change it … we can’t relive it … we can learn from it, or we can be burdened under it forever … the choice is in our hands … As people of faith, our job – our task – our calling – is to embrace the lessons from the past with truth, and understanding and to create a new reality …
In that moment, when we move forward – we’re creating a resurrection … we’re living a resurrection … we ARE a resurrection …
And when we live that Resurrection – we are truly Home …
May it be so … thanks be to God … Let us pray …
OFFERING, OFFERTORY AND PRAYER OF DEDICATION
HYMN # 49 (SFGP) Amazing Grace
PRAYERS OF THE PEOPLE & THE LORD’S PRAYER (# 959 VU)
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.
HYMN # 102 In Loving Partnership
COMMISSIONING:
BENEDICTION RESPONSE: Choir – Now Unto Him
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