Worship on the Fifth Sunday in Lent
10:00 am 17 March 2024
Online & Onsite (Mixed Presence) Gathering as a Worshipping Community
Led by the Rev Brad Childs
Music director: Binu Kapadia Vocalist: Lynn Vaughan
Elder: Darlene Eerkes
We gather to worship God
Music prelude
Greeting
L: The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.
P: and also with you.
Lighting of the Christ candle
Welcome and announcements
Silent preparation for worship
Call to Worship
L: On this fifth Sunday of Lent, we discover a troubled Jesus in prayer as he contemplates his death on the cross.
P: We are grateful for the prayers of Jesus and for the times in the gospels when Jesus prayed.
L: In the garden of Gethsemane Jesus threw himself on the ground and prayed, ”Remove this cup from me; yet, not what I want, but what you want.”
P: And so we pray, as Jesus taught us, ‘Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”
Opening praise: Here I am to worship
Prayers of approach and confession
Our Changeless God,
Under the conviction of the Spirit we learn that
The more we do, the worse we know we do,
The more we know, the less we know,
The more holiness we have, the more sinful we realize we are,
The more we love, the more there are to love.
O Lord,
We have wild hearts
And cannot stand before you blameless unless you take our sins away;
We are like a bird before a man and at his mercy
How little we love your truth and ways! How poorly we show our love,
We neglect prayer,
By thinking we have prayed enough and earnestly,
By knowing you have saved our very souls and yet let the souls of others suffer in our midst.
Of all hypocrites, grant that we may not be greatest but that we may be the last.
Our minds are buckets without a bottom,
With no spiritual understanding,
No desire for the Lord’s Day,
Ever learning but never reaching the truth,
Always at the gospel-well but never holding quite enough water.
Likewise our consciences are without conviction or contrition,
With nothing to repent of because we do not see the depths of our sin.
On a fools errand we attempt to forget out own sins or white wash them away and pretend they do not exists. But his job is yours and yours alone and when we come to you, you truly can and do forget them, truly can and do wash them away.
Our will is without power of decision or resolution.
Our hearts without enough affection, and full of leaks.
Our memory has no retention,
We forget so easily the lessons learned,
And Your truths seep away.
Above all else this day we ask to be new men and new women. Grant us a new heart oh God and Give we hearts that carry forgiveness and grace with us everywhere we go and to everyone we meet. –Amen
Response: I will trust in the Lord
Assurance of God’s grace
The Scriptures say that to our God our sins are wiped away from his mind and forgotten. Through him we are anew and we are made perfect. Let us go and sin no more. We are a forgiven people.
Musical Offering: As the deer (Warren Garbutt, Brad Childs, and other Singers)
We listen for the voice of God
Children’s time
Response: Open our eyes, Lord
Story
I see that you’re wearing green. I wonder if that has to do with any kind of particular tradition. When I was a kid we had silly traditions. You know like on your birthday maybe they spank you. I don’t know, they, they still do that.
What about the green? What’s that about? St. Patrick’s Day, okay, so you’re wearing green because of St. Patrick’s Day?
What happens if you don’t wear green? Are there consequences? Would someone pinch you? Do they still do that?
Here are some examples of drivers for who there are consequences for not driving carefully – consequences that they try to avoid by making an excuse. These are from the Toronto Sun newspaper.
A driver said: A pedestrian hit me and went under my car.
Another said: In my attempt to kill a fly, I drove into the telephone pole.
Another: I’ve been driving my car for 40 years when I fell asleep at the wheel and had this accident.
Another: I’ve been shopping all day for plants. I was on my way home and as I reached an intersection a hedge just sprang up out of nowhere.
What do you think? Good excuses? No, no, no, no. Sometimes we have bad excuses and when I make mistakes, sometimes I make bad excuses up too. How about you?
I see a lot of rolling eyes over here in the front. You do, don’t you?
So I’m going to read this from First John 9.
This is the message that he’s given to announce to you, God is light. There’s no darkness in him. We are not living in the light of the truth, but if we are living in the light of God’s presence just as Christ is, then we have fellowship with him. … If we say we have no sin or errors, we’re just fooling ourselves and refusing to accept what’s obviously true. But on the other hand, if we confess our wrongs to him, then he’s always faithful to forgive and let us start anew from every wrong.
How about this? To live in the light you have to ask for forgiveness and, when you do, don’t worry about somebody coming to spank you or pinch you that’s not what God does. He comes to forgive you.
Prayer
Let’s pray. Our God, we thank you for our lives and for our families. And we apologize for the things that we do wrong sometimes as kids. We apologize to the people that we hurt and we apologize for our lies. God, help us to do better.
The Lord’s Prayer (535)
Transition music
Song: The Word is a lam unto my feet
Today’s Message
Scripture reading: Hebrews 5:5-10 & John 12:20-33
Response: Jesus, remember me
Message: Bart gets an “F”
In ‘Bart Gets an F,’ an episode of the Television show “The Simpsons”, Bart prays for more time to study for a history test so he doesn’t fail and have to repeat the fourth grade. In a rather passionate and saddening scene the little boy is shown crying in his bedroom. He gets down on his knees at the edge of his bed and prays. He says amidst his tears, “I just need one more day to study, Lord. I need your help.” Just then the stage expands to reveal Bart’s sister, Lisa, watching, who mumbles to herself, “Prayer: The last refuge of a scoundrel.”
Prayer is the last refuge of a scoundrel. Or at least it can be.
The Barna Research Group conducted a study in 2009. In that study those who responded answered that 82% of them had prayed as often as once per week. Even more intriguing is that out of the 82% some of those who claimed to pray as often as once a week check the box “no religious affiliation” and some had marked “Atheist”. Apparently, the urge to pray is sometimes so strong that some will pray not even believing anyone can answer. The old adage “There are no atheists in the fox holes” is truer than many would comfortably admit. Perhaps even more interesting is the breath of prayers that people pray. A Newsweek poll some years ago titled “Is God Listening” indicated that at the top of people’s prayer lists were things like Personal Health, Safety, Jobs, and Success. In fact, 64% said they mostly prayed for personal success. 51% prayed very specifically that they might win the lottery.
Prayer is the last refuge of a scoundrel. It’s true you know. But let’s be honest, we’ve all done it. We’ve all been the praying scoundrel at one time or another. We’ve all tried to pray away our just deserts. Like a dumb kid with her head inside the old procilen bowl making a deal with God in the hopes that all that alcohol had already reversed its way from whence it came.
Personally, I can distinctly recall driving North up Interstate 80 heading for Omaha, Nebraska the day after my brother’s wedding. I was going 137kilometers an hour.
Now you have to realize that it’s not terribly uncommon to go 10miles over the speed limit and the limit on that stretch of I80 is set at 75miles an hour… I was going 85MPH and that is exactly 137km/hr. Anyway, I was a student. I was broke. And when those red and blues started flashing and that HyPo (highway patrol) car revealed itself behind me, my heart started pounding like never before. And then it hit me. I wasn’t wearing a seat belt. As he approached the car, the officer no doubt saw a strange mysterious hand growing out of my neck as I reached for the seatbelt. As a side note you can’t be pulled over for seatbelt violations in Nebraska but if you’re stopped for something else then they can ticket you for it). Seat belt or no seat belt, I was a praying scoundrel like no other. “Oh God PLEASE get me out of this, I will never speed again, I’ll adopt a world vision sponsor child, just get me out of this.”
I got a ticket for speeding, I got a written warning about the seat belt and I took a drivers safety course in Lincoln instead of paying the fines. Prayer… sometimes it is the last refuge of a scoundrel. By the way I grew up in Kansas which had no seatbelt law and has no motorcycle helmet laws. So as bad as this was I got three more of those seatbelt tickets within two years of moving to Edmonton.
Ignore whatever my family says, I’m 1000 times better at remembering now. But it you needed more proof – There you go. – “Praying Scoundrel” [This Guy].
I read this story I’d like to share if I’m not getting too long winded yet: A rather heavyset fellow (it’s me😉) feeling a little soggy around the old midsection determined to get himself healthy. He would go on a very simple diet. No drastic or crazy changes just one simple trick. The man informed his coworkers that he was going on a diet and that he would no longer be brining donuts to the office each morning.
He knew it would be hard to resist stopping by the bakery on his way to work (as he’d done every day for years), but he was committed to resisting the temptation.
But to his coworkers surprise the very next day that same man arrived at work with a box of donuts in hand just as he always had. His co-workers gently reminded him of his diet but he just smiled a giant and happy grin. “These are Miracle donuts” he explained. “When I left for work this morning, I knew I had to drive right by the bakery, and as I did… I started to think that… Maybe The Lord wants me to have a donut today. And then I thought, Hey! Exactly Just Who Am I To Defy The Will of God Almighty? Adding quickly, BUT I WASN’T SURE!” His friends and coworkers listened carefully with inquisitive and skeptical faces. “But how could I be sure of His will for me” the man said. “Well we all know how busy that place is in the morning right?
And everyone agreed.
… so I prayed.
I said, ‘Lord if you want me to stop and buy some donuts, let there be an open parking place directly in front of the bakery; if its not there then I know your will is to put me on this diet”.
“So I’m guessing God freed up a parking stall for you since you brought the donuts?” said a friend with a smile.
“Yes Sir, he did”, said the man “AND IT WAS an absolute miracle… By the way everyone I’m sorry to be late it’s just that I had to circle around the block 9 times before God answered my prayer!”
Sometimes, we try and bend God to our Will, rather than the other way around.
Prayer: It can be the last refuge of a scoundrel.
More often that not though, we have real and serious concerns. Our prayers are heartfelt and with good intentions. But with that said, they’re rarely pure. Most of us participate in the very strange act of try to barter with God.
In 1978, Burt Reynolds starred in a dark comedy titled, The End. He played Wendell “Sonny” Lawson, an unscrupulous real estate tycoon who was diagnosed as being terminally ill. Sonny is then given three months to live. Not wanting to live his last few months in pain waiting for the end, he decided to take his own life. A failed attempt at suicide lands him in psychiatric care. There he enlists the help of a delusional patient named Marlon, played by Dom DeLuise. After several unsuccessful attempts to kill himself, Sonny finally escapes from the institution.
Still seeking death; during a seaside drive, he devises a clever plan that can’t possibly fail. His idea is to swim out into the ocean until he is completely exhausted making it impossible for him to make it back to shore. He would then drown and the deed would finally be done.
After swimming out as far as he could possibly make it Sonny screams out “Here I come, Lord” Then he dives down as deep as he can into the cold blue ocean. But just as soon as he dives down Sonny begins to think about his daughter and how much he loves her. He quickly changes his mind and becomes determined to live.
After surfacing, he begins the impossible task of trying to swim back to the distant beach. But he could never make it. In desperation he cries out to God “I can never make it. Help me Lord. Please. I promise I won’t try to kill myself anymore. Save me and I swear I’ll be a better father. I’ll be a better man. I’ll be a better everything. All I ask is… make me a better swimmer!”
Felling some measure of strength he continues swimming. When his muscles become more tired he cries out once more in prayer, “Oh God, let me live and I promise to obey every one the Ten Commandments. I shall not kill. I shall not commit adultery. I shall not… Okay Lord, I’ll learn the Ten Commandments.”
He swims a little further and promises he’ll be honest in his real estate business “Lord, I’ll only sell lake front property if theirs actually a lake around.”
Finally his bartering takes it to a whole new level. “Help me make it and I’ll give fifty percent of everything I make. Fifty percent! And I just want to point out that nobody gives fifty percent. I’m talking gross God.”
As he looks up he sees the shore in sight and knows that will live. With his last few strokes he calls out one last time. “I think I’m going to make it! You won’t regret this, Lord… I’m going to start donating that ten percent I promised right away.”
Prayer: when we barter with the Almighty it is the last refuge of a scoundrel.
We laugh, because there is a lot of truth in that story. Too often, we pray panic-button-prayers packaged with flowery promises we can’t keep anyway. Much of the time though we simply neglect God. When things are going fine, we’re happy to do things on our own but when things turn sour then we tend to turn to our old best buddy – God.
Prayer should be as natural as breathing. But a lot of the time its what happens when every other option has failed – it’s then that we realize we can’t make it on our own. We all do that sometimes.
Prayer can be the last refuge of a scoundrel.
We promise we’ll never speed, slack, cheat, lie or steal if God will just get us out of that latest mess.
In contrast to our tendency to try and pray our way out of problems, Jesus shows us how to pray our way into faith. In the scriptures Jesus bypasses the panic-button prayer option. Knowing he was going to Jerusalem to “The End” to be crucified, Jesus didn’t panic-button pray away his troubles with bartering or intentions to follow his own will no matter what God’s answer. He just prayed honestly.
When people started coming out from all the ends of the earth to see him, Jesus, knowing that the hour had come (and what that meant) took some time to explain to his closest friends that he was about to die. He said, “The hour has come for the Son of Man…. 24 Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.”
… he continues on “32 And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” John gives us a little note at the end of this just in case you happened to miss the subtlety. He writes, “He said this to show the kind of death he was going to die.”… He said, “when I am lifted up”.
See, for John there is no doubt at all that Jesus knew exactly the horror that awaited him; that Jesus knew that it will be gruesome and terrible and painful. Jesus knows… and like any of us would, he is unnerved. And standing with a gathering of friends he asks a very pointed question about prayer. Jesus says, “27 “Now my soul is troubled, but what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’?” and then he answers himself. He says “No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour. 28 Father, glorify your name!”
Jesus doesn’t barter with the Father. He knows a terrible fate is coming but there’s no deal-making going on. That’s not to say that he’s happy about it. That’s not to say that he doesn’t have the right to ask for things to be different. AND He does, We do!
In Matthew where Jesus prays this prayer Matthew records additional information. Here Jesus also says, “My soul is crushed with grief to the point of death” and “My Father if it is possible, let this cup of suffering be taken from my lips.” But then Jesus ends it with this. He says, “Yet above all, Thy will be done; not mine.”
27-28 “Right now I am shaken. And what am I going to say? ‘Father, get me out of this’? No, this is why I came in the first place. I’ll say, ‘Father, put your glory on display.’” (MSG)
Prayer can be and often is the last refuge of a scoundrel. We’ve all been that scoundrel; Treating God like he’s a magic Gene, ignoring Him until he’s our last and only hope, trying to barter with the creator of the universe as if we actually have some leverage, or trying to bend Him to our will rather than the other way around.
Prayer can be the last refuge of a scoundrel. But it’s also the last refuge of the faithful.
Prayer is the last refuge of the faithful, when we pray out of real concerns (when we express our true suffering or our true thanksgiving and joy.
Prayer is the last refuge of the faithful when we come openly and honestly to God with everything bare; knowing that He can handle the things we cant.
Prayer is the last refuge of the faithful when we admit that our souls are troubled.
Prayer is the last refuge of the faithful when we pray not selfishly but compassionately for others.
Prayer is the last refuge of the faithful when we see prayer not as a list of demands but as a conversation.
Prayer is the last refuge of the faithful when we’re willing to accept answers like, “not now” or “no”.
And above all else prayer is the last refuge of the faithful when we can cry out; with all lost and still mutter those most important words knowing deep inside that His Ways are not our ways and that He knows better than we do, saying “Yet above all, Thy will be done; not mine”. Amen.
Song: If I have been the source of pain (199(
We respond to serve God: Our time of giving
Reflection on giving: Jesus reminds us that a seed surrenders its life to the ground in order to bear fruit. What we surrender to God in our offering will also bear fruit in the world, for the sake of Christ, our Lord. As springtime begins this week, sow seeds of God’s love as you offer your gifts.
God of growth and new life, with our gifts we offer you our thanks and praise for the promise of spring and the promise of resurrection in Christ Jesus. With these gifts, accomplish more than we can ask or imagine, as they bear fruit in the world you love, through Christ, our Lord.
Prayer of gratitude and for others and ourselves
Our Lord We pray for those whose lives closely touch our own that they may always be in our hearts and have joy and happiness in their lives. Yet we also pray for those who trespass against us that their sins too may be forgiven.
Bless us all,
We pray with thanks for families, neighbors, teachers, teammates, fellow workers and all those in our community who support the well being of others, especially the sick and the needy.
Strengthen them,
We pray for those who suffer the loss of family, friends and neighbors that they may be comforted by those who love them. Help restore peace and harmony in their hearts. Let them discover Your love through the care and support of others.
Use us Lord.
Comfort them,
We pray for the mission of the church; for our Session and for our Presbytery. We pray for all who proclaim the Gospel to the ends of the earth and for all who seek the Truth.
Strengthen them,
We pray for all the leaders of the world that they may make wise choices for everyone and that they may lead us to honor one another and serve the common good.
Guide them,
We pray for your wonderful creation, the Earth, and its streams, trees, mountains and plants. We pray that the animals of the Earth may freely enjoy these resources and that they may last as long as human people walk its soil.
Guide those who manage the world,
We pray for those who have died and for all the people who miss them. May all find peace and strength in You.
Bless all of us,
We pray for those who do not understand, have lost, or have not found Your love, that they may seek a deeper knowledge of You, that You might tap them on the shoulder gently and reveal your presence and care.
We pray our God that Your love might find those who need You most. Guide and bless them, O Lord, and hear our prayer. But above all we pray for understanding.
For Thy will be done. –Amen
Song: O love, how deep, how broad
Sending out with God’s blessing
Fix your eyes on the Lord. Place your hand in His Hand, trusting in his guiding and comfort. Go into this world, that needs so much the words of healing love, and bring the good news of God’s absolute love and presence to all people. Go in peace. AMEN.
Response: Benediction (as you go)
Music postlude
————————————————————————-
Numbers in brackets after a song/hymn indicate that it is from the 1997 Book of Praise of the Presbyterian Church in Canada. Those and other songs are being used in accordance with the specifications of Dayspring’s licensing with One Licence (3095377) and CLC (A735555).
The Rev. Brad Childs retains the copyright (© 2024) on all original material in this service. As far as Brad Childs is aware, all of the material that has not been attributed to others is his own creation or is in the public domain. Unacknowledged use of copyrighted material is unintentional and will be corrected immediately upon notification being received.