Worship at First Presbyterian Church of Marion, Illinois

Worship at First Presbyterian Church of Marion, Illinois

By First Presbyterian Church of Marion, IllinoisReligion & SpiritualityChristianitySpirituality
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Worship at First Presbyterian Church of Marion, Illinois episodes

  • March 25, 2018 – Palm and Passion Sunday – Even Death on a Cross

    John 19:16b-22 Sign above the cross proclaims the crucified king.

    Opt.: John 12:12-27 Triumphal Entry
    Psalm 24
    The week starts off one way, and it turns so quickly. We have spent a lot of time this Lent towards the end of the week. Jesus comes into the week surrounded by cheering. He exits the week nearly alone, not in the company of those we might celebrate. In a way, the tempest in a teapot over the sign reflects the week. Jesus is celebrated as he comes into town to celebrate the Passover, welcomed, cheered, and space is made for him.
    By the end of the week, by Friday, things are different. The sign says king of the Jews. Pilate posts the sign. There is protest. Like many things about this week, it is what it is.

    What is this week for you? Is it the celebration? Is it the palms, the meal, the Passover, the denial, the arrest, the crucifixion, the betrayal, the abandonment? Is it the lengths God will go to save us? What is this week?

    12 min
  • March 18, 2018 – The Fifth Sunday in Lent – Talking about Jesus

    John 19:1-16a Jesus is condemned, they have no king but Caesar.

    Psalm 146
    If you’ve ever been in the room for someone to talk about you, either knowingly, or unknowingly, this passage might sound familiar. The soldiers mock Jesus and name him the king of the Jews. The Jews confront Pilate
    and tell him that Jesus called himself the son of God. Pilate gets worries, and tells Jesus that he has power over Jesus’ live and death. Pilate gives the Jews their king. And now, the people who once asked God to give them a king say that they have no king but the emperor.
    In all of this, Jesus doesn’t say much. He really doesn’t have to – the people around him are saying more than enough. They’re screaming it, in ways that we often don’t, and yet we say the same words. We’re afraid, like Pilate, that Jesus really is the son of God. We’re afraid, like Pilate, that if Jesus is who Jesus is, it will get us in trouble with power. And we’re not as honest as the group that yells they have no king but the emperor.

    We have let empire replace the witness of God incarnate.

    So when we talk about Jesus, do we presume we have the authority, like Pilate does? Do we want someone else to lead us, like the crowd? How is it we talk about Jesus?

    25 min
  • March 11, 2018 – The Fourth Sunday in Lent – Can’t, Won’t, Don’t

    John 18:28-40 My kingdom is not from this world.

    Psalm 145:10-13
    This passage is full of the impossibilities that present themselves in the movement towards the cross. The chief priests don’t even take Jesus into Pilate’s building, so that they won’t defile themselves. They hand him over to Pilate because they can’t kill him. Pilate doesn’t find him guilty of anything that would be worth of being put to death. 
    For all of that, it happens. With all of the can’t, won’t, don’t, it happens anyway. For all of the legalities, religious and otherwise, that seem to make the death of Jesus on a cross impossible, it happens just the same. For all the protests, and the weak resignations, Jesus dies on a cross at the request of the religious authorities, under the power of Rome, as the crowd cries for Barrabus.
    What is it we can’t do, that still seems to happen?

    17 min
  • March 4, 2018 – The Third Sunday in Lent – Said and Unsaid

    John 18:12-27 Jesus’ trial before Annas, Peter’s denial.

    Psalm 17:1-7
    Jesus is tried before Annas, the high priest. And in his trial Jesus really doesn’t say much. He says almost nothing. Jesus simply says that everything he has done, he has done out in the open. He has preached in
    the temple. He has spoken in public. He has healed in public and worked miracles in public. He has gone on the record. Of course, all of this is happening at the house of the father-in- law of the high priest. Not exactly
    out in the open and above board.
    So we have a contrast between what Jesus does and what the high priest does. We also have that contrast between Jesus and Peter. Peter is not willing to say to those who ask him, “Were you not with Jesus in the
    garden?” “Did you not see me with him. I am with him.” Peter is unwilling. But not just Peter is unwilling.
    In this day and age, it can cost us a lot to say “I’m with him/her/them.” It can cost us a lot to say where we stand. Sometimes we choose not to say where we stand because we’re afraid of losing. Sometimes we choose not to stay where we stand because we’re afraid to actually admit where we stand to ourselves.

    What piece of your faith or of our faith do we hold true, yet are unwilling to say out loud, or live out loud? In what ways do we deny the Jesus we claim to follow?

    18 min
  • February 25, 2018 – The Second Sunday in Lent – Off Limits

    John 13:1-17 Jesus Washes Feet

    Psalm 51:7-12
    While shoes really don’t seem to be an essential doctrine of faith around here, this foot washing passage might make us uncomfortable. It is a scene of great intimacy. It is a scene of great trust, and a scene of great drama.
    Beyond Peter’s protest and exclamation, the words of Jesus are pretty powerful and important, even if they are not said at the volume level that Peter speaks. Jesus says, “You should do as I have done for you. If I, your Lord and Teacher have done this, so you should do.” 
    I think we get that part of it. We should do what God has done for us. I think we have a harder time understanding that often we are Peter, and don’t want God to do things for us, or to us. What parts of our lives are off limits to God? And if they are off limits to God, are they off limits to us to do to one another as well?

    14 min
  • February 18, 2018 – The First Sunday in Lent – A Little Easter

    John 11:1-44 Raising Lazarus, Jesus as resurrection and life

    Psalm 104:27-30

              As I prepare in the relative quiet of the church office on a Sunday morning, I know that I’m tired of rewriting sermons because of the events of the week regarding a gun and a school. We’re just a small handful of days into Lent, and it feels like we’ve been in this 40 day wilderness for years. And yet, liturgically, theologically, today is supposed to be a little Easter. A little celebration, in the midst of Lent. Today, Sunday, doesn’t count as one of the 40 days of Lent, because Lent, the journey to Jerusalem, can’t really contain or hold Easter back, or down, or steal center stage.

              Which brings us to Lazarus. He’s dead. He’s not sleeping, he’s dead. He’s in the tomb for 4 days. And in the KJV, he stinketh. He has a bereaved family, and a bereaved community. He has sisters, Mary and Martha, who are both actually a little ticked at Jesus. “If you had been here, he wouldn’t have died!” Jesus goes back to Judea, over the protests of the disciples, who know that the authorities are hunting for Jesus. Jesus himself weeps outside the tomb. This is a quintessential Lenten story – loss, grief, a dash of anger, some slow disciples. It’s a slow story, 44 verses – and it takes its time.

              Martha’s faith is on display. If you had been here he wouldn’t have died. AND even now, I know that whatever you ask, God will give you. And then, “Yes, Lord, I believe you are the Christ, the Son of God,” in response to Jesus saying that he is the resurrection and the life. Then Mary comes, and she, too, on the same page with Martha, says that if Jesus had been there, her brother would not have died.

              And so they go to the tomb. There’s a stone in the way. Jesus asks for it to be rolled away. Jesus prays (speaks to God), and then commands Lazarus to come out. And Lazarus does. He comes out, wearing the burial cloths. The people gathered, the crowd, the community, the family, unbind Lazarus and take him away. And that’s a little bit of Easter in the middle of this Lenten story.

              So what about us this week? In this first week of Lent with another school shooting. In the first week of Lent with the heaviness of the prayer concerns of the last month, the last week, the last 4 days, what about us? When the families in Marshall county, or outside of Boca Raton say that these deaths would not have happened if you were here, Jesus? Where is our little Easter? When the word comes back from the doctor, and it’s not what we’d like, where is our little Easter?

              We can, and do, hear this story as a prelude to Easter, a foreshadowing of what is to come. But that is too simplistic. This isn’t just the sneak preview of coming attractions, or a commercial for a later event. This is life and faith. This is the messy of faith.

              So pay attention to how the Easter shows up. It shows up in Mary and Martha. It shows up in a weeping Jesus. It shows up in a stone rolled away. It shows up in a man unwrapped from his burial bindings and led off home by his community and his family. Easter shows up in a community divided.

              The question that is ringing in my mind and heart is this, “How are we, as followers of Christ, showing Easter to a world in Lent?” How are we standing outside the tomb and weeping, calling for resurrection, demanding that the stone be rolled away, and going into places where we are threatened? Are we willing to follow the model of Immanuel, and to be the body of Christ

    12 min
  • February 4, 2018 – Fifth Sunday After Epiphany – The Ground We Walk

    John 4:1-42 Jesus meets a Samaritan woman at well, speaks of living water and true worship.

    Psalm 42:1-3 My soul longs for God
    The Ground We Walk
    This story is too much. There’s too much going on here. There’s Jesus, absent disciples, challenge, conviction, water, living water, Messiahs, worship locations, redemption, evangelism, and boundary crossing. That’s way too much for one sermon. Not that I haven’t tried to do 
    too much before, and won’t again.

    For today, however, we’ll run a narrower field. When Jesus comes to town, the place he comes to is a place we’ve been before. The place is described as a well on the ground that Jacob gave to Joseph. And we know Jacob and Joseph. We know about Jacob meeting his wife at a well. We know about his beloved son Joseph. We know about his interesting family. That is the place Jesus finds himself.

    Jesus finds himself back with people who know the story, who are a part of God’s story in the world. Jesus is back. Jesus is back because we need to hear it again. Jesus is back because we are women at the well, broken, sinful, and doubting that the promise is for us, because we have been told it is not. Jesus comes back. He comes back to the places God has been, and to the ground we travel each day. He comes back for us.

    15 min
  • January 28, 2018 Fourth Sunday After Epiphany

    John 3:1-21 Jesus and Nicodemus, being born  anew, God’s love for the world.

    Psalm 139:13-18 You formed me in my inward parts
    Intimacy
    This John passage is perhaps best known for creating ‘born-again Christians,’ and showing up at sporting events and other mega events on banners and signs. We’ve spent a lot of time on this passage over the years. We have often cut them apart, or dealt with them separately, but perhaps we do them an injustice when we do. 

    Nicodemus sneaks out under the cover of dark to see Jesus. Just for the record, that’s not why most of us sneak out. We sneak out for something forbidden, for something thrilling, for something  important. So Nicodemus shows up, after dark, at the place where Jesus is staying and they talk theology. Who do you let in after dark when they pound on your door?

    When we pair the passage from John with the passage from the Psalms, we hear something that we would hear more often than we do. We hear about the intimacy of our relationship with God. We hear the repeated language of love. We hear about the God who knits us together, who crafts us. We witness a God who opens the door after dark to engage with us about salvation and love.

    Take a step back, and imagine this narrative not used a litmus test for faithfulness, but as a statement about who God is and how God loves us. That’s who we worship and serve.

    14 min

About Worship at First Presbyterian Church of Marion, Illinois

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As Christ's body we gather to worship throughout the year. These recordings include our Sunday worship, and worship on holy days. Our worship typically follows the PC(USA) Book of Common worship, and…