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2330 South Jefferson Street
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2330 South Jefferson Street
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The Season After Pentecost, also
called Ordinary Time, is the
period which has 28 Sundays this year. The season begins with Trinity
Sunday (the first Sunday after Pentecost) and continues through the day
before the first Sunday of Advent. The Sundays of this season are
designated as Sundays after Pentecost.
As Christ cares, we care…
We care about
all people. ORDER OF WORSHIP-10:30 A.M. + Indicates the people standing ENTRANCE
Prelude
Sonata No.
1
by J. G. Naumann PROCLAMATION AND RESPONSE
Children’s Time SENDING FORTH
+Singing
415
Take Up Thy Cross
Germany
THOSE SERVING TODAY:
The Altar Flowers Are Given *CHILDREN (AGES 3 through 1st GRADE), may meet the acolyte to recess to Children’s Church. Please ask your child to line up behind the acolyte who will lead all children out together. After the worship service, parents must pick up their child in the Children’s Department; children will not be allowed to leave the room until their parents arrive. WELCOME! We're glad to have all who have joined us for this time of worship. Especially to our guests and visitors, we welcome you to South Roanoke and to our fellowship. We invite those who have no church home to make South Roanoke your church and add your witness to ours. AVAILABLE IN THE NARTHEX: The May/June Upper Room, hymnals in brail, individual hearing enhancement equipment, and children’s bulletins (ages 3-12). Please ask an usher to assist you. NEXT WEEK’S SERMON, The Ultimate Sacrifice, will be based on Genesis 22:1-14. Please read and study the text this week. OUR 2008 LENTEN OFFERING HAS EXCEEDED OUR GOAL! Goal: $15,600-Received to date $15,910. Thanks be to God for a generous response to our outreach to those in need in our community. VBS: If you are interested in helping to provide a meal for our children during Vacation Bible School (July 6-July 10) (particularly Monday, July 7 or Thursday, July 10), please contact Elizabeth Carroll at 400-7528 or Elizabeth_Carroll@vawb.uscourts.gov. ATTENTION VACATION BIBLE SCHOOL ADULT AND YOUTH STAFF: There will be two training sessions for Vacation Bible School workers on June 23 at 7:00 p.m. and on June 24 at 10:00 p.m. All workers should try to attend one of the two. Thanks, Lee Anne Steffe. ADDITIONAL OFFICE HELPERS ARE NEEDED: We have a list of volunteers who help in the office when Penny is away, but it would be very helpful if we could add some more names to that list. If you feel you could help by answering the phone and greeting visitors to the office periodically throughout the year, please call Penny at 344-4437 ext. 10. TEACHERS ARE NEEDED for the preschool and elementary Sunday school classes for the summer. If you can help even one Sunday, please call Lee Anne Steffe, 344-4477. THERE WILL BE a meeting of the Staff-Parish Relations Committee TONIGHT at 7:00 p.m. in the library/conference room. THE MARY CIRCLE will meet on Monday, June 23 at 6:30 p.m. in the library/conference room. If you are interested in joining this night circle, please call Anne Ferguson, 345-2436. FELLOWSHIP ON THE FIFTH: On June 29th we will have our first Fellowship on the Fifth. All Sunday school classes will gather in the fellowship hall at 9:15 for fellowship. VOLUNTEER IN MISSION TEAM TO MISSISSIPPI--THE DATE IS SET!: For the Hurricane Katrina relief effort we will be sending a group to Mississippi October 18-25 . Please contact the church office as soon as possible if you would like to be a part of this mission team. THE UNIVERSITY OF FAITH COMMITTEE will meet on Tuesday, June 24 at 2:30 p.m. in the library/conference room. PAULA WILL BE ON VACATION next week. She will be back in the office on July 1. CHRISTIAN SYMPATHY is expressed to the Dotty Carder, Nene Roe, and Fred and Catherine Gilreath families in the recent death of Alma Hunt. _____________________________
God’s Promises When: Sunday July 6 – Thursday July 10 5:30 – 8:00 PM What: Study of God’s covenant
relationship with his people and how it evolved through Who: Pre K (Age 4 by 09/30/08) through rising 5th Grade Why: Many people who proclaim Jesus as
their savior have memories of Bible School or a How: We’ll need lots of help from
Youth, Parents, Grandparents, other adults interested in
Contact Lee Anne Steffe 540-344-4477 or jsteffe@cox.net ____________________________
June 22,
2008 6th Sunday after Pentecost
Now and Forever
Children Every Christian I know speculates from time to time on what heaven is like. In much the same way, you ask any Christian today what difference baptism and the lordship of Christ makes in his or her life and you’ll get a clearly unanimous reply: “Going to heaven when you die.” We are all familiar with the images that so often come to mind in this regard: pearly gates; streets paved with gold; the place you go when you die to be with God and reunited with our loved ones. And perhaps it should not surprise us that among the first images that come to our minds about heaven have to do with the things that the world highly values such as pearl and gold. Now it goes without saying that the very best we can ever imagine about heaven is just a tiny, finite, dim vision of the fullness of that reality. But when we limit our vision to the best of what the world values and to the fulfillment of our own personal, individual lives, that might be a good place to start, but if we stop there we miss the vision altogether. As we read the Bible and understand the Gospel of Jesus Christ, we would rather describe heaven in much more comprehensive and relational ways. The Gospel would invite us to a more mature understanding of the eternal. Heaven is not only an individual destination but a communal destiny. The Gospel would invite us to expand our initially limited vision of the eternal. In a sense, it is not a place at all but a level of existence, a status. If we must call it a place just to be able to get our finite minds around it then it is at least a much different place, “another planet,” if you will. I believe the Gospel would invite us to a fresh understanding of heaven, the fulfillment of God’s vision for creation, restored as it was originally made. If we expand a bit our finite earthly images for just a moment: the atmosphere is clean and pure where your lungs are filled with fresh air. There is plenty for everyone, and everything there is actually healthy for you, good for you, and it all even tastes good! There we forgive each other…rather, we have already forgiven each other and whatever offense one has committed against another is long forgotten. Peace is restored in our relationships with one another, with other peoples, with other governments. As the prophet foresees, they have fashioned their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks and neither do they learn war anymore. There everybody understands that it is the perfectly logical thing to do is to be last, not first, without another thought about it. There everyone always does the right and good thing spontaneously because there God and humanity will one will quite naturally. We can go on and on. You see, it’s a different status, a different level of reality, a different atmosphere altogether. If it is a place at all it surely is a different place, a place of grace, a “different planet” altogether. Now I begin this reflection on Paul’s letter to the church at Rome with our images of heaven because, just as Paul does not want to be misunderstood by the folks in the church at Rome, so we must not misunderstand him. Some in Rome you see where misunderstanding Paul’s message about grace. If we are saved by grace and grace is a good thing that forgives sin, then they wondered out loud, “why not continue in sin so that grace may abound? More sin, more grace, right?” Wrong! You and I cannot imagine a more ridiculous argument today (or at least I hope we can’t!) No, our problem today is not hoping to sin more that that there will be more grace. I believe our problem is misunderstanding what Paul means when he speaks of the resurrection of Jesus Christ and the affect of that grace in our lives at baptism. It is not just about what will happen to us then, but what has already happened to us now. A bank in Binghamton, New York, had some flowers sent to a competitor who had recently moved into a new building. There was a mix up at the flower shop, and the card sent with the arrangement read, "With our deepest sympathy." The florist, who was greatly embarrassed, apologized. But he was even more embarrassed when he realized that the card intended for the bank was attached to a floral arrangement sent to a funeral home in honor of a deceased person. That card read, "Congratulations on your new location!" Our Daily Bread, May 25, 1992. A new location. You and I don’t have any trouble understanding this when it comes to our eternal destination. But the Apostle Paul would invite us this morning to consider the new location you and I find ourselves right now by our baptism into the death and resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Baptism does not just change your eternal destination. Baptism changes you. You need to do all you can to sustain your change in status, your level of living, the atmosphere you breathe in your life. David Sedaris was interviewed on the public radio program Fresh Air (6/9/08) a couple of weeks ago about his new book. As an aside the host Terry Gross asked him about how he had managed to quit smoking. What did he do? Was it particularly hard for him? He replied that someone had told him it is easier to quit if you move. So he moved to Japan. And it worked! For him, a different place encouraged the best of his own willpower and personal commitment. Anyone who has struggled with or known anybody who has struggled with any kind of addiction knows the secret: it’s all about people, places, and things. You have to change places. You need new friends. You have to go to a different place to overcome that reality because that old life, or to use Paul’s term, that old self, somehow found it to be perfectly logical to manage the things of life by turning to that drug of choice, from nicotine on up, to self-medicate and somehow anesthetize the pain or create a different reality that just feels better or more self-affirming for all too brief a time. You have to change people, places, and things. You have to come to the different place where the logical, natural, spontaneous thing is to face the struggles and issues of life head on in a community of friends and family who share your pain and genuinely affirm you. In essence that old life for you must die so that you can be raised to a new life. You must be dead to it.
Paul says,
In baptism you are moved to a different place. Your status is changed. Your level of living discovers a new reality. You go to a “different planet.” I would share this morning a story of one person told at the Virginia Annual Conference this past week who, because of her baptism, seemed to live on a “different planet.” Bishop Hope Morgan Ward of the Mississippi Annual Conference, a seminary colleague of ours, was the conference preacher this year. When she served as pastor of Myers Park UMC in Winston Salem, North Carolina, their congregation was meeting with others to form the Interfaith Hospitality Network in their area, a ministry that we share in our own community. As you know, homeless families with children in transition to permanent housing are hosted by sponsoring churches that provide meals, shelter, and fellowship for one week at a time. Hope and the church volunteer director were discussing in the hallway that neither of them could attend that first meeting. A new member of the church, a single mother, recently baptized and received into the community, overheard that conversation and said, “I’ll go!” So they sent her to the meeting with their blessing. The next morning Hope received a call from her and she was very distraught, requesting an immediate appointment. When she came into her office she said, “That was the most discouraging meeting I have ever been to in my life!” “How was that?” Hope asked. “We were scheduling the hosting and had it all finished except for Christmas week. Nobody would take Christmas. I sat there in the silence as long as I could then I finally stood up, slammed my fist on the table and told them: ‘I can’t believe you people! The baby Jesus was homeless at Christmas! Nobody wants to help the homeless at Christmas? Well, I’ll tell you what, our church will take Christmas, and every Christmas week every year!’” Now you can imagine the reaction of her pastor! So her pastor told her, “Why don’t you tell the congregation this Sunday!” And she did. She invited folks interested in helping to meet in the narthex after the service. When Rev. Morgan made her way to narthex at the end of the service she discovered there so many people gathered together in response to that invitation. They were sharing stories like: “This is the first Christmas since my husband died and I wondered how in the world I was going to make it through. My church has found a way.” Or “We have been looking for a way to let our children know that Christmas is not all about presents and getting what you want. My church has given us such a great gift in this opportunity.” That outreach was very successful and so meaningful for those who shared in it. The church, as promised, hosted the homeless the next Christmas as well. The story began to spread to other churches. At a later meeting of the Interfaith Hospitality Network one of the representatives complained that it’s not fair for Myers Park to have every Christmas week. Others should have a chance, too. Sermon preached by Bishop Hope Morgan Ward at the Virginia Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church, June 17, 2008, Roanoke, Virginia This young woman, this single mother, was just baptized. Baptism took her to a different place, a different status, so much so that her own pastor thought she must be from another planet. After all, it was the natural, spontaneous, logical, obvious thing that nobody could possibly be interested in serving over Christmas. For her, it was exactly the opposite. With the homeless was the most natural, spontaneous, logical, obvious place to be at Christmas. By her baptism she raised a congregation, a whole community, to a new level of existence, even in the life of one destined to be elected bishop of the denomination. Sisters and Brothers, the Gospel calls us to a much more mature understanding of the eternal. Yes, the eternal is forever, but the eternal is also now. One of the most meaningful phrases shared in any benediction the church ever gives includes the words “now and forever.” Yes, the eternal is surely about you as an individual going to heaven but it is also about all of humanity and all of creation being restored right now to the fullness of life in which we were all created. Yes, the eternal is about you going to be with God and reunited with your loved ones, but it is also about being in relationship with God now in fellowship with all the saints.
A
commentator on Paul’s letter
(N. T. Wright,
New Interpreters’ Bible, X:537)
states that
the question, “Shall we remain in sin so that grace may abound?” is rather
like saying, “Shall we remain in France and keep speaking French?” In
baptism you are blessed by God, your status is changed, you go to a
different place, and we all together learn what it’s like to live on
“another planet.” That’s what Paul means when he says, God is not only up there awaiting us. By the suffering, death, and resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ God is here, right now, in the midst of the sometimes joyful, sometimes difficult and painful moments of life, changing and transforming you and all of creation into the likeness of the image of God in which we all were created. Through baptism we are, as Paul says, dead to sin and alive to God right now. That is the gift of God through Jesus Christ. What about you? Have you ever had any trouble doing what the doctor tells you to do? Is it natural for you to desire and choose healthy things to eat and do for your body? Do you get up in the morning and you just can’t wait to exercise? Is the taste of food with the proper levels of fiber and vitamins and anti-cholesterol agents the most pleasing to you of all? Do you spontaneously forgive those who have wronged you? When was the last time you forgave another, or was it so natural for you to do that you’ve already forgotten about the offense altogether? Is your relationship with God through Jesus Christ so intimate that you it just seems logical to you to be last rather than first? This is such a limited vision, a finite image of the eternal, the gift of God now and forever. But if you and I are having so much trouble with this now, if this just doesn’t feel at all natural to us here, now, if we are not striving to be where the Master is every day hearing his word, sharing the sacraments, offering deeds of love and mercy here, now, how on earth do we ever expect to be even comfortable there, then? William G. Davidson
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