~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

A Word Of Hope For Cleveland

Sermon, Sunday, August 26, 2007

"Our Job: Here & Now"

Isaiah 58:9b-14

(click on any part of text)

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
 

Hymn:

All Who Love and Serve Your City

1. All who love and serve your city,
all who bear its daily stress,
all who cry for peace and justice,
all who curse and all who bless,

2. In your day of loss and sorrow,
in your day of helpless strife,
honor, peace, and love retreating,
seek the Lord, who is your life.

3. In your day of wrath and plenty,
wasted work and wasted play,
call to mind the word of Jesus,
“I must work while it is day.”

4. For all days are days of judgment,
and the Lord is waiting still,
drawing near a world that spurns him,
offering peace from Calvary’s hill.

5. Risen Lord! shall yet the city
be the city of despair?
Come today, our Judge, our Glory;
be its name, “The Lord is there!”
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
* Words: Erik Routley
* © 1969 by Stainer & Bell Ltd. (admin. by Hope Publishing Co., Carol Stream, IL 60188).
* All rights reserved.

 urban psalm

by Jonny Baker from his website, Worship Tricks

[i reworked psalm 113 at grace for an urban setting (the psalm with the famous 'from the rising of the sun...' ). i read it with the video arrive by ed holdsworth which is the most fantastic images of tokyo traffic - i've mentioned it before. it's on the dvd onedotzero vol 2.]

Psalm 113 [urban remix '04]
God you are heavy!
Followers of Christ give respect to the Boss.
Get on the dance floor and get down.
From the sound of the first tube train before the dawn to the still moments of the night when the city pauses for breath
Give God respect.
God is exalted over the many cultures and networks of the city;
His glory is above the financial markets, government and businesses.
Who is like our God, the one who sits enthroned on high,
Who stoops down to look on the London Eye, the Tate and the Thames.
She raises the poor from the urban areas and the needy from their sense of despair and weariness.
He takes them on a shopping spree in Selfridges and pays off their mortgages.
From the base of a home the woman whose life has been a fight for survival begins to dream and create again –
The joy of life returns.
Respect!
 

Worship Tricks is a collection of resources, print and visual, developed and shared via blog by Jonny Baker, pastor of an "emerging" or "alt" congregation in England.  Find it at: http://jonnybaker.blogs.com/jonnybaker/worship_tricks/wtindex.html
 

Scripture Regarding Foreclosures...

Micah 2:1-5

Social Evils Denounced

Alas for those who devise wickedness
and evil deeds on their beds!
When the morning dawns, they perform it,
because it is in their power.
They covet fields, and seize them;
houses, and take them away;
they oppress householder and house,
people and their inheritance.
Therefore, thus says the Lord:
Now, I am devising against this family an evil
from which you cannot remove your necks;
and you shall not walk haughtily,
for it will be an evil time.
On that day they shall take up a taunt-song against you,
and wail with bitter lamentation,
and say, ‘We are utterly ruined;
the Lord alters the inheritance of my people;
how he removes it from me!
Among our captors he parcels out our fields.’
Therefore you will have no one to cast the line by lot
in the assembly of the Lord.

Scripture Regarding Banking Crisis...

Nehemiah 5:1-13

Nehemiah Deals with Oppression

Now there was a great outcry of the people and of their wives against their Jewish kin. For there were those who said, ‘With our sons and our daughters, we are many; we must get grain, so that we may eat and stay alive.’ There were also those who said, ‘We are having to pledge our fields, our vineyards, and our houses in order to get grain during the famine.’ And there were those who said, ‘We are having to borrow money on our fields and vineyards to pay the king’s tax. Now our flesh is the same as that of our kindred; our children are the same as their children; and yet we are forcing our sons and daughters to be slaves, and some of our daughters have been ravished; we are powerless, and our fields and vineyards now belong to others.’

I was very angry when I heard their outcry and these complaints. After thinking it over, I brought charges against the nobles and the officials; I said to them, ‘You are all taking interest from your own people.’ And I called a great assembly to deal with them, and said to them, ‘As far as we were able, we have bought back our Jewish kindred who had been sold to other nations; but now you are selling your own kin, who must then be bought back by us!’ They were silent, and could not find a word to say. So I said, ‘The thing that you are doing is not good. Should you not walk in the fear of our God, to prevent the taunts of the nations our enemies? Moreover, I and my brothers and my servants are lending them money and grain. Let us stop this taking of interest. Restore to them, this very day, their fields, their vineyards, their olive orchards, and their houses, and the interest on money, grain, wine, and oil that you have been exacting from them.’ Then they said, ‘We will restore everything and demand nothing more from them. We will do as you say.’ And I called the priests, and made them take an oath to do as they had promised. I also shook out the fold of my garment and said, ‘So may God shake out everyone from house and from property who does not perform this promise. Thus may they be shaken out and emptied.’ And all the assembly said, ‘Amen’, and praised the Lord. And the people did as they had promised.

Hymn: O Holy City, Seen Of John

O holy city, seen of John,
where Christ, the Lamb, doth reign,
within whose foursquare walls shall come
no night, nor need, nor pain,
and where the tears are wiped from eyes
that shall not weep again!

Hark, how from men whose lives are held
more cheap than merchandise;
from women struggling sore for bread,
from little children's cries,
there swells the sobbing human plaint
that bids thy walls arise!

O shame to us who rest content
while lust and greed for gain
in street and shop and tenement
wring gold from human pain,
and bitter lips in blind despair cry,
"Christ hath died in vain!"

Give us, O God, the strength to build
the city that hath stood
too long a dream, whose laws are love,
whose ways are brotherhood,
and where the sun that shineth is
God's grace for human good.

Already in the mind of God
that city riseth fair:
lo, how its splendor challenges
the souls that greatly dare--
yea, bids us seize the whole of life
and build its glory there.

Words: Walter Russel Bowie, 1910
Music: Morning Song, Sancta civitas