Whew. Only 4 days of CPE left. I can't believe it is almost over. It is been the fastest and the shortest 10 weeks of my life. I am grateful for the whole process, but looking forward to a short break before classes start again in September.
I'm including below the second worship service and sermon that I prepared and led in the chapel at the hospital. I was very pleased with this service and got good feedback from my colleagues and my supervisor about it. Preparing the services and sermons were my favorite homework assignments from CPE - I found this type of "work" very energizing.
An Order For Worship
May God, the Creator of the universe, be with you.
People: And also with you.
Welcome
Let us pray.
Almighty and everlasting God, you made the universe with all its marvelous order, its atoms, worlds, and galaxies, and the infinite complexity of living creatures: Grant that, as we probe the mysteries of your creation, we may come to know you more truly, and more surely fulfill our role in your eternal purpose.
People: Amen
Reading: Genesis 2:4b-9, 18-23
Homily
In high school, I had a friend named David. David was one of those kids that was always building and fixing things. According to his mother, David had been like this all his life. When he was a little boy, he used to bring things to his mother: toys, tools, bugs, etc. and he’d ask her questions about it. He would ask her question after question until he had exhausted her knowledge of the subject and when he would finally ask a question that she could no longer answer she would reply, “Because the manufacturer made it that way.”
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We are curious people. We are practically born asking questions. As soon as we learn to speak we begin to ask questions about the world: Who is that? What is that? How does it work? What do you do with it?
As we grow older we begin to ask more sophisticated questions about the world – we ask about things that we experience, but cannot really see: Why do balls bounce? Why do things fall down instead of up? Where does time go?
Eventually we start asking questions that get harder to answer until we reach the questions that are unaswerable: Why are we here? Why do bad things always happen to me? Why can’t I ever get a break? Why me? Why now? Sometimes, the only answer we can find for these questions is: “Because the manufacturer made it that way.”
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So what do we know about this manufacturer? What do we know about this thing that he has made? Is this a brand name that we can trust?
In the reading we heard today from Genesis we learn a little bit about the manufacturer. We learn that God is intimately involved in the creation of our world – forming man from the dust of the ground. I can just see God’s hands, scooping up the wet earth, just like wet clay, and shaping it into the form of a person. And then, I see God leaning forward and breathing his breath into the form, bringing it to life with the breath of life.
We also learn that God is compassionate to our situation. After putting Adam in the Garden, God realizes that Adam should not be alone – that he cannot be alone – so God adds to the garden all sorts of creatures until he finally creates another human to be the perfect companion.
We learn that the manufacturer created the world to contain the things that we need to sustain life – plants for food, water for drinking. Animals and other people for companionship. The world is a system that is designed to work together – to be in harmony. And God asked man to till it and keep it – God gave us responsibility in the world.
So we know that God is intimately involved in our creation, that he is compassionate and that he has created the world with order and harmony to be a place that sustains us.
But we don’t know about the bad things that happen. The author of this story doesn’t tell us about disease or violence, the author gives us no indication of how those things got introduced to this beautiful world that the manufacturer created. Yet, we all know from our experience that they are here. Bad things happen to us. We get sick. We get hurt. We lose our job. And we begin to ask those hard questions: “Why me?” “Why this?”
The author of this story looked at the world around us, full of violence and struggle and somehow made a faith statement that the manufacturer did not intend for violence and struggle to be predominant. That instead, God, the creator, created the world with harmony and compassion. I’m convinced that the author of the story had a personal experience with God. Maybe he felt God’s presence in the midst of the struggle. Maybe he felt God at work in his life. But whatever it was it was enough to convince him that God was bigger than the violence and the struggle he saw in the world. He didn’t believe that violence and struggle was the intention of the manufacturer.
And this is what I choose to believe about the manufacturer. I believe that God is intimately involved in our creation; not just our initial creation but our on-going creation. I believe that he breathes life into us and that he breathes new life into us when we need it. I believe that the manufacturer is compassionate to our situation and is near when we struggle. I believe, just like the author of this story, this manufacturer is a brand name that we can trust.
Song: Many and Great, O God (See insert)
Prayers
Creator God, all I have seen teaches me to trust you for all I have not seen.
(Please say aloud from the list below or add from your own experience what you have seen that gives you confidence in the Creator).
Egg
Honeybee
Penicillin
Butterfly
Birth
Tadpoles
Electricity
Saturn
Coral
Sight
Eternal God, we pray for your people throughout the world. We pray for peace among nations and the well being of all people.
(Please say aloud your prayers for the church and the world.)
Gracious God, we pray for the sick, the hungry the oppressed, and those in prison.
(Please pray for anyone that is in trouble or pain.)
Generous God, we pray for the curious – for all who seek you and a deeper knowledge of you. We pray that they might find you and be found by you.
(Pray for those that seek God.)
We pray for all who have died, that they may have a place in your eternal kingdom.
(Please say aloud the names of those that have died).
Lord, let your loving kindness be upon them;
People: Who put their trust in you.
Almighty God, we praise you and thank you that you know our needs before we ask. Help us to continually seek your will for us and for your creation. This we pray today.
People: Amen
Closing Acclamation: Psalm 139: 1-14
People: O Lord, you have searched me and known me.
You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from far away. You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, O Lord, you know it completely. You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is so high that I cannot attain it. Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there. If I take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me fast. If I say, ‘Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light around me become night’, even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is as bright as the day, for darkness is as light to you. For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; that I know very well.
May you take comfort and rest in the knowledge that God, our Creator, knows you and loves you and may God’s peace go with you today and always.
People: Amen
My peers noted to me that I definitely have a Silicon Valley mindset using the image of a manufacturer as God. While God is often referred to as "The Artist" using metaphors of artists to personify God, none of them had ever heard of God the manufacturer. They teased me that calling God a "brand" might not go over well in every situation, but that they could see how that playful reference would work so well in a culture of entrepreneurship such as we have in the Bay Area. I am very pleased with the sermon and the service.
