sunday worship service | stjohnselkton

GOSPEL MESSAGE

April 6, 2025
FIFTH SUNDAY IN LENT
Instead, You Could Have . . .

Not another book of the Bible talks about love the way John talks about love. Even if a person doesn’t know another thing about this gospel, never went to vacation Bible school, sang a hymn, sat in a pew, or stared at a stained-glass window, chances are good they will perk up at familiar echoes of John 3:16, “For God so loved the world.”

Love is leaking out of this gospel book like water from a hose with no gasket, and who knows where it all goes? “I love you, you should love me,” Jesus says. And love one another too—colleagues and culprits, defamers and defenders, the near and the far, bullies, bandits, and bores. “Love.” It is Jesus’ nonnegotiable command. So you’d expect that the hangers-on, the stick-arounds, the learners and leaders and even the laggers-behind whose names and faces and brief bios show up in John’s chapters would be specialists in the art of loving.

Some of those gospel characters were together one night in Bethany, a little village just over the hills from Jerusalem. A dinner (it was holiday time) was being hosted in the home of Jesus’ friends Lazarus, Martha, and Mary. But the festive gathering was menaced. They were on edge in the intimacy of the room. Uneasiness stirred in the streets, rebels’ causes brewed in shadows and braved daylight. Rumors and plots swirled as they do in troubled times—times that ignore commands, are deaf to pleas, and mislay impulses to love.

When love does not know what to do or how to act; when it struggles with itself and feels imperfect or too thin, unfinished and inadequate; when the campaigns and monuments and funds and meals and letters seem not enough . . . look at Mary. She leads the way by kneeling at the feet of love itself. There we find the path toward love.

April 13, 2025
SUNDAY OF THE PASSION / PALM SUNDAY
Remember Us

On this Sunday of the Passion, the gathered church remembers the final days of Jesus’ life. Once the celebratory palm branches are set down, the mood shifts as the somber tones of betrayal and crucifixion take over. The Lukan narrative draws us into the details, and we remember the extent of God’s passion for us as Jesus enters into the depths of suffering through divine selfless love poured out for the sake of the world.

There is power in remembering. To be sure, this is an exercise of memory and recall for us. Yet Holy Week is much more than that. In our remembering of Jesus’ passion, our reality is re-membered with God’s reality. Like members of a body, we are re-membered onto Christ, formed into one through the Spirit, and drawn into the reality of God’s saving love. Through scripture, song, and prayer, the liturgy of this day re-members us as God’s people as we bear witness to Jesus’ remembrance of us.

In the culminating moment of the crucifixion, only Luke’s gospel reports the exchange between the two criminals and Jesus. The one criminal chastises the other before he addresses the crucified Jesus, saying, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom” (Luke 23:42). The request is for more than an act of recall; the criminal is seeking to be re-membered in the dominion of God, seeking a fusion of realities—his with Jesus’. Without hesitation, Jesus responds, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise” (v. 43). The criminal will be with Jesus, re-membered to Jesus.

This Sunday we remember Jesus’ passion as together we are joined to God’s loving action for the world. Jesus’ last breath on the cross is the moment when our reality is re-membered with God’s, for Jesus remembers us, and paradise’s reign is realized.

April 17, 2025
MAUNDY THURSDAY
Jesus’ Hands

On this Maundy Thursday, what does it mean that Jesus, with his carpenter-calloused hands, takes the role of the servant and washes the feet of his friends? So often we focus on the feet, but what if our attention is on the hands instead? Jesus’ hands—the very hands of our God.

Imagine Jesus kneeling in front of you, and you, along with the other disciples, placing your feet in his hands. He looks you in the eye and begins to wash. You glance down and gaze on Jesus’ hands and remember.

These hands were birthed in Bethlehem to carry the promise of God’s salvation. Jesus’ hands felt the flow of the Jordan River in his baptism and belovedness. These holy hands scooped up the little children to bless them and receive them in love. These are Jesus’ hands that, coursing with righteous fury, demanded justice for the oppressed. Jesus’ soothing hands that healed and comforted, revealing the reign of God. Jesus’ powerful hands that stood at death’s doorstep and gestured for Lazarus to come out. Jesus’ hands that broke bread and ushered in a new covenant. Jesus’ hands clasped in prayer: “Not my will but thy will be done.” Jesus’ nail-pierced hands that from the cross revealed the fullness of salvation, taking on sin and death through the power of God’s self-giving love. These are the same hands that folded up death’s garments on Easter and opened up eternity for you, for all. These are Jesus’ hands that washed the feet of his disciples.

Look upon Jesus’ hands that hold you, along with the whole of Christ’s church, as we journey through these Great Three Days. These are God’s hands that carry us from life, through death, to life everlasting.

April 20, 2025
RESURRECTION OF OUR LORD, EASTER DAY
Memory and Hope

Of all the Sundays for Jesus to be absent from the gospel story! How can he be missing on Easter? Go figure.

Since Jesus is nowhere to be found, the women who go to the tomb have no evidence of the resurrection but only the testimony of two mysterious figures: “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here but has risen. Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again” (Luke 24:5-7).

And they remembered.

The women’s memory is more than simple recall. Their sudden recollection of Jesus’ prophecy implies a deeper level of comprehension. And with new insight into the bewildering events they have witnessed comes a stirring of hope for what is to come.

The Akan people of Ghana in West Africa give us the wisdom of sankofa, the principle that by reaching back, we may move forward. The sankofa proverb teaches, “It is not taboo to go back and fetch what you forgot.” We face the future by grasping the past.

That is a good way to describe Christians’ confession of faith. We are all like the women at the tomb on Easter morning. We have no evidence of the resurrection, but only the testimony we have received from others, all the storytellers and saints throughout the generations. Recalling their witness, we proclaim the Easter promise again today. Memory and hope go hand in hand.

So remember, beloved. Remember: where even two or three of you are gathered, the living Christ will be there with you. Remember: blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh. Remember: if Christ has gone to prepare a place for you, he will come again and take you to himself, so that where he is, there you may be also.

April 27, 2025
SECOND SUNDAY OF EASTER
Scar Stories

Do you know a person without any scars? It is hard to imagine anyone getting through the years without a few cuts and scrapes, or worse. Some scars we regard with a sense of humor, even pride. These tend to be the marks of superficial injuries that we describe in stories with mostly happy endings. But other scars lay bare deeper physical and emotional pain—the scars of trauma, heartbreak, loss. These are precisely the wounds that benefit most from the attentiveness of others but may be harder to talk about.

If you were to guess what physical form the risen Jesus would take on Easter evening, would you imagine that any sign of suffering and shame would remain? And yet, his scars are intact. What remarkable continuity between the Jesus the disciples have known and the Jesus they encounter in resurrection.

Even more remarkable is Jesus’ readiness to draw attention to his scars. “Peace be with you,” he greets them (John 20:19). Then he immediately shows them his hands and his side, as if to say, “See my scars? These are the signs of my suffering. They will always be part of me, even though I’ve overcome them.”

In this way, Jesus models courageous vulnerability. If he can tell his scar story, defying the shame of the cross, then maybe his friends can tell theirs too. Rather than locking their pain away, the disciples have permission to throw open the doors. They can own their grief instead of letting it own them.

Easter does not erase Good Friday. Risen life incorporates our scars. But by acknowledging our pain and the pain of others, we bear one another’s burdens in the spirit of Christ. This mutual caring engenders trust and closeness. And together we can tell our scar stories with confidence, making way for healing and new life.

The Readings in the Bible

April 6th:

John 20:19-31
In this the first concluding chapter to the gospel of John, written in perhaps the late 90s, the Spirit handed over at the death of Christ (19:30) is distributed to the disciples. The narrative indicates that by the time of the writing of the Gospel, Christians were regularly assembling on the first day of the week. The chapter moves the Easter proclamation from the disciples, through the unbelievers, to those who encounter this good news. The evangelist claims that the gospel book, proclaimed at the Sunday assembly, manifests Jesus as Christ, the Son of God, who gives life in his name.

Acts 5:27-32
Writing in perhaps the late 80s, Luke presents in Acts a triumphal picture of the church as the on-going sign of Christ’s resurrection. In this excerpt describing a second persecution of believers, “the apostles” had been carrying on Jesus’ ministry by healing the sick and preaching the kingdom. Escaped from prison with the help of an angel, they are now being interrogated by the Sanhedrin and the high priest. Peter, whom Luke describes as the leader of the Jerusalem community, responds with a concise Christian creed. Characteristic Lukan details are mention of Jerusalem as the origin of Christian mission, the message of forgiveness of sins, and the power of the Holy Spirit within believers.

Revelation 1:4-8
The book of Revelation, written perhaps in the late first century, applied traditional Jewish apocalyptic imagery to the situation of the early Christian church at a time when the Roman Empire commanded that emperors be worshiped as divine. Apocalyptic visions predict a cataclysmic final battle at which God will finally overcome evil. These visions are tied to “John,” which means “beloved of God,” and may be invoking the authority of the John in the original Jesus movement. The seven spirits are angels that oversee the seven churches to which the Revelation is addressed. After a standard epistolary introduction, the excerpt includes an early creedal description of Jesus Christ, who reigns over the whole earth as ruler of the earth’s kings—thus also of the Roman emperor. God is almighty in past, present, and future, a designation later useful in trinitarian theology. The first and last letters of the Greek alphabet, Alpha and Omega, suggest God as both the beginning and the end of all things.

April 13th:

Luke 19:28-40
In Luke’s account of the entry into Jerusalem, the crowd echoes the song of the angels at Jesus’ birth (Luke 2:14). As befits Luke’s attention to Gentile readership, he omits Matthew’s quote from Zechariah and the reference in Mark and Matthew to King David.

Luke 22:14—23:56
Raymond Brown’s comparative study of the passion narratives suggests that much of the passion material arose in popular tradition and reflects growing interest in both positive and negative details to fill out the story of Jesus’ execution. Luke’s account stresses Jesus as the forgiving Savior: his sweat in Gethsemane was like great drops of blood; he does not reprimand the sleeping disciples; he forgives the thief on the cross. Only Luke includes the details of Peter’s denial and the episode with Herod. Luke omits the Hebrew cry for mercy “Hosanna,” the charge concerning the destruction of the temple, the crowd accepting blame for Jesus’ execution, the reference to Elijah, and mention of an earthquake and the raising of the dead.

Isaiah 50:4-9a
Second Isaiah, probably arising during the exile about 550 bce, includes four “Servant Songs,” in which Israel itself, described as God’s servant, is chosen and anointed with God’s Spirit to bring justice to the people. Isaiah 50, the third Servant Song, is spoken in the first person and emphasizes the humiliation endured by the servant, described as a teacher, whose trust is in God.

Philippians 2:5-11
Philippians is a letter sent by Paul and his associates to the church in Philippi, an important Roman city, late in Paul’s career. The letter stresses the joy of the gospel, despite trying circumstances. Paul quotes an early Christian hymn, perhaps his own composition, that affirms faith in Christ Jesus as the incarnation of God. Christ, having emptied himself, was ultimately exalted by God as Lord. To Paul’s Christian readers, “Lord” suggested both “honored sir” and “YHWH.”

April 20th:

Luke 24:1-12
Luke, writing in about 85 ce, has edited out some of the resurrection narrative details in Mark (the women’s questions) and Matthew (the earthquake) and adds several others: the proclamation by the two men (as at the Ascension, in Acts 1:10); reference to the suffering and death of the Son of Man; a longer list of named women; the disbelief of the male disciples; and Peter’s visit. The reference to the death of the Son of Man and the testimony by the women to “the eleven and all the rest,” “the apostles,” render this account of the resurrection a full Christian narrative: the word of God that Christ died and rose again comes to the community. In Luke’s gospel, all resurrection appearances occur on one day: an ascension forty days later is only in Acts.

Acts 10:34-43
In the book of the Acts of the Apostles, the second part of Luke’s two-volume work, the evangelist extends the power of the Holy Spirit, who was first encountered in the angel’s announcement to Zechariah (Luke 1), to the apostles’ preaching of the cross and resurrection, first in Jerusalem (Acts chap. 2–8), then in Judea and Samaria (chap. 8–9), then to the Gentiles (chap. 10–15), and finally to the ends of the earth (chap. 15–28). Luke’s narrative demonstrates how, with the blessing of the Spirit, the church expanded throughout the Greco-Roman world, especially through the efforts of first Peter and then Paul. Acts describes the church in a positive light. Its twenty-eight sermons and speeches convey Luke’s message to his readers in the late 80s. In chapter 10, the story of Peter’s testifying to the Roman centurion Cornelius, Luke included a summary of the Christian proclamation, concluding with his customary emphasis on the forgiveness of sins.

April 27th: