This week has been a crazy week. We have three of our four interns with us and we have been following the curriculum that we designed for them to learn about the Church. We have them for four hours a day. We are outlining this week for them all the work (components) that goes into preparation for Sunday worship. We have been through the process that the altar guild must go through to prepare our space. What the greeters and ushers need to do on Sunday. What our inclusion minister does with newcomers. We have outlined what preachers must do to preach a sermon. (Imagine it taking one hour of research/study for each minute of preaching – a 10-minute sermon takes 10 hours to prepare. Next week we will send them out into the world to experience ministry first hand). This Sunday our Interns will be assisting us in an “Instructed Eucharist.”
At the 10:30AM worship service which is called “the liturgy,” we are going to pause and explain what we are doing and why we do it the way we do it. The word “liturgy” means “the work of the people,” so please consider this teaching exercise as the work we will all be doing together to learn or remember the “why we do what we are doing.” I hope it will be of value to you. I am available to answer questions afterwards. It is very important that you read the lessons before coming into church. Here is the Gospel Lesson for this Sunday.
Mark 3:20-35
The crowd came together again, so that Jesus and his disciples could not even eat. When his family heard it, they went out to restrain him, for people were saying, “He has gone out of his mind.” And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem said, “He has Beelzebul, and by the ruler of the demons he casts out demons.” And he called them to him, and spoke to them in parables, “How can Satan cast out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but his end has come. But no one can enter a strong man’s house and plunder his property without first tying up the strong man; then indeed the house can be plundered.
“Truly I tell you, people will be forgiven for their sins and whatever blasphemies they utter; but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit can never have forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin”— for they had said, “He has an unclean spirit.”
Then his mother and his brothers came; and standing outside, they sent to him and called him. A crowd was sitting around him; and they said to him, “Your mother and your brothers and sisters are outside, asking for you.” And he replied, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” And looking at those who sat around him, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.”
In this Gospel lesson what would you preach on? The word Gospel means Good News, what is the Good News here? The crowd was so excited to be near Jesus that they kept him from eating? The fact that they believed Jesus was crazy – out of his mind? Jesus has the devil in him? What about forgiveness of sins? And what is the one sin that is not forgivable? Who are your brothers
and sisters? Come this Sunday and hear one crazy person’s crazy point of view! (And more importantly you will get to meet our Interns!)
By His will Alone,
Jim+
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