The Grace Community Church, UCC Website is experiencing some technical difficulties this week, so today we are meeting in this digital space for Worship.
Welcome and Announcements
Opening Hymn • O Day of God Draw Nigh
Gathering Prayer
Lay Leader: Mary Jo Renner
Tithes and Offerings
Checks can be mailed to:
Grace Community Church
C/O Rene Horton
P.O. Box 368
Auberry, CA 93602
Reading from the Hebrew Scriptures • Zephaniah 1:7, 12-18
Lay Leader: Mary Lou Renner
Epistle Reading • 1 Thessalonians 5:1-11
Lay Leader: Mary Lou Renner
Special Music • For Those Tears I Died
Gospel Reading • Matthew 25:14-30
Church at Prayer and The Lord’s Prayer
All are invited to email me prayer requests for next week’s prayer, or to get in touch any time during the week. We are in the midst of an unprecidented global event, and I am available as a compassionate ear if you find you need to talk through what’s going on.
Hymn • How Great Thou Art
The Message (Upload is slow, thank you for your patience!)
Sermon Transcript
Can we have joy yet? I ask this from our calendar location—just a few weeks before Advent begins. A few weeks before the “holiday” season is kicked off, a time when text messages and calls between my family would normally be flying back and forth as we negotiate meal times and side dishes for Thanksgiving. None of that is happening this year, though. I’m not sure how this has looked for you, but for us it’s a lot of “You think it’s safe yet? No, me neither.” and lackluster suggestions of, “well, we could Zoom from each of our own Thanksgiving tables and maybe it would feel the same…” but the more we try to replicate the usual, normal patterns using online video conferencing, the harder it can be to accept the bizarre and heartbreaking situation we’re still in.
So, can we have joy yet? I ask this from our physical locations—from landscapes scarred with the recent memories of a scorching fire season, from trees with leaves in bright yellows and oranges, from piles of the work to be done before winter storms move in over us, from the COVID cases that seem to keep rising and rising and rising around us. I ask this from our emotional locations, the places deep in us where we are experiencing grief, uncertainty, fear. The ways COVID has personally affected us, the loved ones we’ve lost, the job insecurity. The ways we have these impossible choices to make regarding when to send children back to school, how and when to visit Grandma, whether we should meet in person to worship sooner or later.
In 2020, joy is a seasonal item on a menu that never seems to go in season, so I guess I’ll just order the Gnashing of Teeth and the Weeping. Jalapenos on the side, thanks.
And yet, the word Joy shows up, ever so briefly, in the text for this morning. You know, before the gnashing of teeth. And so, even though our Matthew reading ends in teeth gnashing (which, side note, I keep meaning to ask my dentist if he’s noticed an uptick in gnashing-related maladies this year. It seems like it would be a common 2020 issue.) but, as I was saying, even though the parable this morning ends in teeth gnashing and weeping, in there earlier we have the word “joy” peeking out at us.
The revised common lectionary has offered two tracks in the season after Pentecost that the preacher could choose from—there was another way we could have gone that would have moved us in order starting from Genesis on a semi-continuous journey toward the season of Advent, or the version I chose, which offered texts that were complementary to one another. (Oh, nice hat, Matthew, thanks Zephaniah, I sure love the shoes you’re wearing. Get it. Complementary?) I give this detail because I want to call in all three readings we had today as I ask whether we can have Joy yet, because there is some serious woe and destruction. There’s even a line in our Zephaniah reading that says “…because they have sinned against the Lord, their blood will be poured out like dust, and their flesh like dung.” There’s some serious wrath happening here. It seems like a hard place to find a word like “joy,” and yet, it is the text that complements our Epistle reading and Gospel reading.
In our epistle reading from 1 Thessalonians, it opens up with the jarring reminder that we can’t just schedule out the Day of the Lord. It’s not something that I can look at my datebook and say, “ah, yes, next Thursday God’s coming, so I should move that dental appointment up to Tuesday to have my gnashing checked out.” The words “thief in the night” and “labor pains” are used to describe how sudden and unexpected the coming of the lord will be. We get that sense from the imagery in Zephaniah as well, and then some. Our epistle continues on, however, with a reminder to stay vigilant, to stay awake, to build one another up and offer support because that kind of being ready is hard. It also offers a promise, and it’s one many are familiar with, and it sets this vision of the Day of the Lord apart from the one we see in Zephaniah—we are not destined for wrath because of the way that Jesus Christ has saved us, even those who are sleepy on that day when the Lord comes.
Okay, so that’s a spot where we can pinpoint some joy, right? But are we ready for it? Can we have it yet? I feel like we’re on a long road trip and the kids are in the back seat singing “are we there yet?” and even though the scenery offers some nice views, my headache is pounding and I can’t get past the rolling of my motion sickness to enjoy the rolling hills. But also, does this nullify the warning laid out in Zephaniah? And what about that third servant who buried the talent in Matthew. You know, the teeth-gnashy one? What does that mean in this context?
In Zephaniah, it is specifically said that folks will be punished for resting in their complacency, like, “Well, God’s not actually gonna anything anywayyyyyyy….” And the fake security they’ve uilt up in all their gold, the fortresses and walls they’ve built around their cities or their nations, none of that is going to stop God from capital W Wrath, because they did not practice what they preached. They would do one thing in ritual, and another out the the wider community. It sounds a lot like sleeping instead of remaining vigilant, and yet, we know God sent Jesus, and even the sleepers are saved by this uncontainable, boundless love and outpouring of grace on humanity.
So, like, why not sleep through everything? In an age where zoom meetings mean we can stay in pajama pants all day and still appear professional, that seems like a tempting option.
We turn to the gospel for some answers, and to uncover how this act of staying awake is one that invites us into joy, even in times like this.
This parable of the talents gets used in stewardship campaigns sometimes, but it has a lot more to offer than just financial advice, and ew, that’s part of a grossly inflated capitalistic cultural interpretation, which takes us ever farther away from where that deep joy can be found. The one we are hoping to grab onto, even if it feels a little premature.
Often, we read God into the protagonist in these parables. If we do this across the board, we are in danger of not allowing the full range of grace-filled possibilities, or worse, in danger of assigning our own meaning and condemnation of some folks. In this parable, if we read the “Man” as God in this, we can come to the conclusion that poor people are basically outside the circle of those whom God blesses. However, if we loosen our grip on the literal sense of money in this, and look at the “man” as Jesus himself, and the “talents” as faith, then we can expand the way we understand this parable.
A talent is a lot of money. The man gives these talents to his servants while he is gone, each is given a different amount, depending on what the man sees each one is able to handle. Then, after a looooooong time, the man checks in with the servants and finds out what they did with this money—which would have enhanced the quality of life for the servants while they were keeping it for him—and he finds out what they did during that time to either grow the wealth or, in the case of the last one, just to maintain it as it was.
Okay, so stepping away from the money piece, if we read this as Jesus has given each of these folks this good news, that they are under this wide umbrella of grace from God, and then Jesus goes away for a long while—hint hint, he’s still gone—he will expect each of us that has been entrusted this grace, this love, this faith to have done SOMETHING with it. To have cared for humanity, to have show God’s love in some way, to multiply the blessings we have received from Jesus Christ by extending an extravagant welcome, SOMETHING. And so the two servants—hint hint, that’s like, all of us—who did this entered into the joy—AH, JOY—of their master.
The one who dug a hole, buried those blessings, and didn’t do a darned thing with them, didn’t extend the grace past what was already doled out, well, they didn’t do with this good news what should have been done. This servant gets thrown into the outer darkness. Teeth gnashing.
What about that outer darkness, though? Can one manage to revel in the joy of their master once thrown out there?
When things are rough, like, COVID-19 rough, and it feels like the outer darkness and our teeth have gnashed, okay. They’ve gnashed so much we’ve worn down out enamel and are getting headaches from the jaw tension, even in those times where we are grasping for some light, we still can find those single talents we’ve buried, those hidden pockets of faith we haven’t fully brought to their complete purpose. We can dig them up and begin to faithfully spread the good news through our actions and words. We don’t have to just sleep through it, because even though we’ve been assured that even those who are drowsy do not escape God’s love, where can we even begin to get a glimpse at joy if our eyes are closed and we’re not awake.
So can we have joy yet? Are we there yet? It feels like the outer darkness, and we have a long, weird, and potentially devastating season ahead, and yet, if we continue to show God’s love, shine this light that is in us because of Jesus Christ, then yes, we will find that even in these confusing times, joy will be abundant. May the joy of the divine fill you, and may God continue to entrust you with the care and stewardship of this grace. Amen.
Closing Hymn • I Love to Tell the Story
Announcement
Sunday worship services can now be found on the Grace Community Church website under “Worship,” you can access it by clicking here. Please update your bookmarks, and thank you for worshiping wth us during this challenging time.
Busy Little Sunshine 