Good Shepherd New York • 2.21.21

[Music] [Music] good morning good shepherd we're so glad you're with us today welcome on this first sunday of the season of lynch would you please join me in this call to worship i will read the part of the leader and there will be a response for you to join in [Music] there are some journeys for which we long but the journey to the cross looks as though it will be difficult the way of discipleship and faith is difficult we would prefer something easier we are not ready for this trip your hearts at ease you are not traveling alone perhaps we can accomplish this trip at least we will try the first step [Music] amen we sing from the rising from the rising of the sun until it's going down [Music] let the name of the lord be praised from the rising know the sun would you sing it along with me at home let me hear you sing from the rising of the sun to it's going let the name of the lord be praised from the rising of the sun i love you lord and i live my voice [Music] to worship you and all my soul rejoice take joy my king [Music] in what you hear and let it be a sweet sweet sound let it be a sweet sweet sound let it be a sweet [Music] to you this is [Music] you paint the sky [Music] your everything this is [Music] my love song to you so let it be a sweet sweet sound let it be a sweet sweet [Music] red and orange [Music] do you believe if you're not sure right now please take a moment cause i need your signature before you leave all fallen leaders should curse their branches for not letting them decide where they should fall and not letting them refuse [Music] if no one planted it how does it grow [Music] and why are some hell bent upon there [Music] i don't know all falling leaves should curse their branches [Music] refuse to fall at all [Music] mercy lord have mercy on [Music] me mercy would have mercy on [Music] me [Music] mercy lord have mercy on me [Music] mercy [Music] lord cry out to you i cry out to you lord please cry out to you i cry out to you lord please rescue me i've been drowning in doubt i cannot see you this water's deep and i've been treading too long and now i'm sinking wait you let me see if you are there [Music] would you rescue me [Music] if you are there [Music] comfort me this fear is dragging me down deep in the darkness frigid sea my whole heart has gone cold i know i'm dying would you answer me if you are there [Music] would you rescue me if you are there lord please help lord have mercy on me and now a reading from psalm 25 verses 1 through 10. in you lord my god i put my trust i trust in you do not let me be put to shame nor let my enemies triumph over me no one who hopes in you will ever be put to shame but shame will come on those who are treacherous without cause show me your ways lord teach me your paths guide me in your truth and teach me for you are god my savior and my hope is in you all day long remember lord your great mercy and love for they are from of old do not remember the sins of my youth and my rebellious ways according to your love remember me for you lord are good good and upright is the lord therefore he instructs sinners in his ways he guides the humble in what is right and teaches them his way all the ways of the lord are loving and faithful toward those who keep the demands of his covenant glory to the father the son and the holy spirit as it was in the beginning is now and will be forever amen [Music] be thou my vision o lord of my heart [Music] [Music] by day or by night waking or sleeping thy presence my life be thou my wisdom and thou my true word i ever with the and thou with me lord thou my great father i thy true son now dwelling and i with the one which is the brains thou mine inheritance now and always first in my heart like heaven my treasure thou art thou and [Music] king of heaven my treasure all are welcome at the table of god every man woman and child for christ brings peace to all tearing down every hostile wall so that the many may become one one heart one family one new humanity for god who is love and christ who is all and in all show no partiality and make no distinction so neither race nor class gender nor sexuality politics nor religion personality nor nationality count for us or against us the light of christ enlightens all christ the prisoner and the naked christ the hungry and the sick christ the thirsty and the stranger christ the other may god's spirit hover over our chaos our hatred and our indifference descend in our hearts with love and pleasure blows out into the world to listen and to serve and set us ablaze to forgive and reconcile for we are all welcome at the table of god every man woman and child [Music] amen [Music] [Laughter] from the dust we've come and dust we are and shall return just let it go to god glory to god in my heart glory to god [Music] glory to god [Music] turn into the [Music] grave [Music] just glory to god [Music] glory to god [Music] glory to god glory to god [Music] be still my sword make me whole lord make me [Music] [Music] me glory to god glory to god glory to god glory to god church we're so glad that you joined us on this sunday morning if you would would you say this generosity prayer with me godliness with contentment is great gain we bring nothing into this world and we take nothing out of it we who call jesus lord devote ourselves to resisting greed which plunges the human heart into ruin and pierces it with many griefs we are determined to practice generosity with free hearts fixing our hope on god and not the uncertainty of wealth we desire to be rich in good deeds and willing to share all that we have laying up for ourselves treasure that will not decay but will shine in the age to come may it be true of our community amen this morning know this that you are welcome here and that we're so glad that you're joining us and we speak grace and peace to you that's a prayer that we say each week grace and peace to you and your family your loved ones why don't you speak grace and peace if you're with someone if you're not with anyone right now know this you're not alone you're with us in this digital space and we greet you with grace and peace grace and peace this morning [Music] [Music] the sign of the seal of god's love [Applause] [Music] go in peace [Music] and now a reading from the gospel of mark at that time jesus came from nazareth and galilee and was baptized by john in the jordan just as jesus was coming up out of the water he saw heaven being torn open and the spirit descending on him like a dove and a voice came from heaven you are my son whom i love with you i am well pleased at once the spirit sent them out into the wilderness and he was in the wilderness 40 days being tempted by satan he was with the wild animals and angels attended him the gospel of our lord prays to you lord jesus christ and now having heard our gospel text we take a quiet moment to open ourselves to god to ourselves and to each other and to ask for god's voice to intersect with our lives in a meaningful way a quiet moment right now god help us as we consider this story afresh amen well today is the first sunday of lent it's the first of six feast days in an otherwise fasting season during these precious six days we come above the lenten clouds of introspection and fasting and we let the sun shine and the warm breeze of god's love hit us remember lent is actually 46 days from ash wednesday to holy saturday but because the sundays are for feasting our fast is only 40 days long thank god now during these 40 days of lent we learn to say no to certain things we learn to detach ourselves from them so that we might be opened up to deeper truer and greater things because of that each year this story of jesus tempted in the desert it tees off the season of lent because here he undergoes the most profound of human experiences jesus truest identity commitments and values are put to the test and we're left to see what does he really believe who is he really lent is a season to join jesus on that journey it's a journey of detachment and testing and of character formation it's a season where we ask ourselves what do we really value what are our lives actually built upon i admit it can be a very difficult season because it's a season of self-reflection and sometimes looking at ourselves with honesty is difficult work this is why i like the contrast of wilderness and water in the story the story of temptation begins in the wilderness but the story before it takes place in the water jesus experiences there the drenching waters of baptism the depth of his being is warmed by god's radiant love and pleasure now if you recall as jesus emerges from the surface of the water he has a mystical audio-visual experience of god's voice descending like a dove saying you are my beloved in whom i find great pleasure and it's that voice which becomes the dominant voice of jesus life now coming out of the waters of baptism with that voice ringing in his ears he's driven into the wilderness so we have this fascinating contrast between water and desert the voice of god and the tempting voices of our lives tempting voices that call into question our most basic identity as god's beloved these tempting voices oppose us they accuse us and they really do undermine the kind of lives that we rightly dream about it's to these tempting voices that we now turn jesus in the story faces these tempting voices in the desert and he does so as a full-fledged human being the book of hebrews says jesus is the author and the perfecter of our faith in other words he's showing us how to live life to the fullest jesus is someone who's meant to be imitated now there may be aspects of who jesus is that we will never be and there may be things that jesus did that we will never do but facing and resisting the tempting voices of our lives is not a unique experience to jesus saint paul said imitate me as i imitate christ right this story of jesus in the desert isn't a divine achievement over earthly challenges about which we're simply left to marvel marvel we may but then we're meant to roll up our sleeves and get our hands dirty following his cues jesus didn't resist these voices with a divine cheat sheet in his back pocket he faced them as a human being just like you and me and he showed us what it means to be led by god's spirit and grounded in god's voice the book of hebrews says of jesus quote we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are yet without sin jesus was genuinely tested in the desert just as you and i year after year are genuinely tested lent helps us walk in jesus footsteps it gives us the opportunity to practice resisting the tempting voices of our lives the same way he did we learn to go into the desert so to speak we learn to fast we learn to pray and from that place of intimacy with god that's cultivated there we learn to face the tempting voices of our lives see that's why the mission statement of our church is to help people embody the love of christ not just learn about it or believe in it we believe that discipleship to jesus involves an imitation we aren't simply beneficiaries of a divine transaction in fact salvation is described in the words of saint paul as something that we work out here with reverence and with trembling salvation is something that gets massaged into our lives by the grace and the love of god moment by moment decision by decision as we choose to imitate jesus rather than the other voices of our lives so jesus is here in the wilderness and he's facing the common temptations that you and i face every day now that may not seem apparent because let's be honest the mark doesn't go into detail the other gospel writers do and the temptations that they describe are pretty larger than life if we took them literally they're absolutely irrelevant are new yorkers tempted to turn stone into bread of course not but if they did i'd venture to say it'd probably be a bagel are we tempted to let the angels save us from high and public falls i mean people have jumped from the world trade tower but they trusted parachutes not angels and it was far from public more like three in the morning to get away from the police surveillance so just google it and then thank me later are we tempted to exchange our souls in order to rule the world now i admit that one hits a little closer to home in new york but still what is going on with these bizarre temptations now i'd like to suggest with many interpreters throughout history that each of these temptations signal allusions to earlier parts of the jewish story and identity specifically failures see the grumbling of the people in the desert despite the gift of bread miraculously provided should be present in our imaginations moses little mishap of striking a rock and water coming out or even israel's continued presumption that god was on their side despite their behavior and their constant flirtation with imperial power these illusions and more are present in the story the gospel writers want us to know that where jesus that jesus did succeed where israel failed but at their core these temptations are common to all of us they're symbolic of the mishaps that every human being faces now let's begin with the tempting voice itself mark tells us it's the satan the bible never is very precise about the identity of this figure known as the satan the hebrew word means the accuser and it's clear in the story of jesus that he's engaged in an epic battle against a network of opposition with satan functioning as the critical node nt wright calls it quote the quasi-personal source of evil standing behind both human wickedness and large-scale injustice now we struggle in the modern era for language to talk about this backdrop to evil we do use language of force such as economic forces political forces even peer pressure but we're often hesitant to embrace what's seen by many as superstitious language and symbol this is because there are those on the other side of the spectrum who are devil or demon obsessed and their behavior can range from deliriously dumb to devastatingly dangerous as c.s lewis points out in the introduction to his famous book screwtape letters the modern world divides into those who are obsessed with the demonic and those who mock them neither option will do right there's such a thing as an evil force that seems to take over people movements and sometimes even nations this opposition is present in all of our lives this accusing voice that undermines any sense of worth security or significance that we might have it's a voice that is very powerful and it's a voice that drives our creation of and our addiction to false selves these are simply masks that we wear to protect us from what we fear now i watched the pixar film soul with my children recently and i loved it i was struck by a moment in the film that represents the struggle we get an emotional scene that's basically an animated panic attack one of the characters becomes overwhelmed by a cloud of critical voices it's this overwhelming cloud which is set into motion by her friend who tells her that an experience she thought was breathtaking and meaningful and revealing of her very purpose what the film calls a spark he says it was just ordinary to use his words he says quote that's just regular old living now at this she becomes deflated her hopes are immediately dashed and then a cascade of voices come whirling in joining his critical voice and they become a suffocating despairing presence that traps her in a kind of purgatory she becomes lost it was an emotional scene for me because i know what it feels like to be overwhelmed with and persuaded by critical voices and narratives voices that tell me i'm not worthy that i'm not good enough that my real thoughts and feelings are not welcome here the feeling of despair that follows this story of jesus in the desert is so powerful because the temptations are real we're all faced with our mortality death is real we're all faced with threats to our identity our security and meaning those threats are real but the critical voice the accusing voice wants us to believe that death and the threat of bad things are not just real but that they're at the core of reality and so death and fear overwhelm us they send us on a million paths of coping and defending what ernest becker calls immortality projects these are ways that promise security but they end up closing us off to each other to ourselves and to god that voice that convinces us that death and fear are the truest things but the beauty of jesus resistance here is it doesn't pretend that death and the threat of bad things isn't real they are it doesn't pretend that they don't hurt they do in the end jesus will be threatened jesus will suffer and jesus will die the beauty of this story lies its inability to tap into something deeper something that grounds him in the face of fear and death something that helps him resist that persuasive critical voice and what is that thing for jesus it's the voice of god specifically it's the assuring and grounding voice of love and pleasure that's deeper than fear and pain jesus is able to resist the false ways of being human and embrace the vulnerability of the human experience because the divine voice is his center lent is a season to remember that the critical voice is not deeper than the voice of love but we must make time to experience that right jesus was in the wilderness for 40 days immediately after experiencing the divine voice it was a period of stripping down of truly learning to rely on that voice and to break the backbone of fear he comes out of the desert not just believing theoretically that love is stronger and deeper than fear or that life is stronger and deeper than death no he knows it now in his experience one of my children attended an elementary school basketball camp and they were new to the sport but they were excited to learn until it actually began the next two hours were a series of demanding stations teaching new skills accompanied by yelling coaches i saw the look of panic on their face and a sense of being lost which broke my heart as a parent but i also saw perseverance they were working hard listening showing tremendous perseverance i was extremely proud when it was over we walked home together i peppered them with questions how did it go what did you think every question i asked was met with one word monotone answers fine good when we arrived to our front door i looked down and i saw them trembling i knelt down and i asked them are you okay immediately they broke into a guttural cry i placed my hands on their cheeks and i asked them the only question that made sense to me at the time should we go and get some milkshakes and french fries they nodded yes and so off we went and sitting down over the meal slowly they began to open up with the challenges of or sorry with the comforts of sugar and salt but more than that there was a loving and listening voice they vented their frustrations they recounted their moments of panic at times we laughed and at times we teared up together i was able to open up about my own moments of panic and confusion and self-doubt both in sports and in life and in the end i assured them how brave they were that day how proud i was of them and how much i love them i remember there being this quiet moment of ease that settled around us and then the silence was broken dad they said with a quivering voice i love you so much it remains one of the most touching moments of my life my child knew that i loved them before the camp but they were experienced they experienced that love in a fresh way which broke the backbone of panic when it came to the camp sure it continued to be difficult and demanding but there was a different countenance on their face for the rest of the camp they had experientially tapped into a love that was stronger than their fear and it gave them courage now i wonder during lent this year what fear needs to be broken what threat looms large and needs to be vented in prayer and needs to be relativized by an experience of god's deeper reassuring love and voice may god give us grace to know the voice that's deeper than all the critical voices of our lives amen and now having reflected on our gospel text we're going to do something that we've never done before at least in the entire year of doing digital church we're going to switch over to a live experience an experience of eucharist where we can see each other's faces where we can pray prayers together break bread together and sing the doxology together now if this is brand new to you and you weren't familiar with the email that we sent out or the social media communication that we had put out there that's okay you can go to our website and right now you can click the link that will register you for the zoom call that will happen in a few moments many of you have already registered for that call and what will happen now is you'll have a period of time a few moments a few minutes to transition over to the zoom call you'll be admitted into the waiting room and then at the moment that the credits finish that zoom call will go live and we'll have a shared experience together now if you're catching this uh somehow after the premiere and you're not live either you know at the 11 a.m eastern time premiere or the 12 p.m eastern time premiere that's okay this experience will end now for you but we do want you to be able to experience it with us next time so go to our website you can click on a link to register for the zoom call next week now this may be a little bit clunky even the communication of it is a little bit odd but this is an experiment for the season of lent try to strip down some of the things that we've maybe grown familiar with are comfortable with and to try to open up to new experiences of each other and of the presence of god with us in the eucharist so at this time we thank you so much for joining us at digital church with good shepherd new york my name is michael redzina and i offer you my blessing and my love and we'll see you in a few minutes grace and peace [Music] our way give light to those that live in darkness shadow [Music] death [Music] lead us to the way of peace father would you guide our feet into the way of peace [Music] [Music] [Music] lead us to the way of peace would you guide our feet into the way of [Music] peace you

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Length: 45min 43sec (2743 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 21 2021