Calvary United Methodist Church August 24, 2014 BLESSING OF THE BACKPACKS and SACRAMENT OF HOLY COMMUNION Children s Sermon Matthew 22:34-40 It is a new day, new challenges, new possibilities, new reasons to give thanks. We welcome the children to the front of this worship space to celebrate God s Good News. Good morning, Everybody! Are you excited about tomorrow? (Yes!) Because tomorrow is big. It is, right? Am I right? Tomorrow is big, right. And what is really big about tomorrow is you have a lot of things that you have to know and a lot of things to remember. For example, you have to know what to take. How many of you already packed those backpacks you re wearing? They are already packed and ready to go. You ve had like hard-boiled eggs in there for six weeks. You know exactly what you need to take and you know what bus to get on. How many of you ride a bus? Does anybody here walk to school? Not many. So you have to know what bus you get on. You have to know where it stops and what number it is. And then you have to know what school to get off at because some of the buses take kids to different schools, so you have to know which school is yours.
Then when you get there, you have to know where to go. When you walk in the door and you come off the bus, you have to know where it is you are supposed to go. How many of you have been to your school and you know where your room is? That s a really smart thing to do. You also need to know who your teacher is and some of you going into middle school will have teachers for every different subject. So you have to know a whole bunch of teachers and you have to know a whole bunch of rooms. You have to know what is for lunch, am I right? Because if it is an awful meal, you have to have a back up plan. And you need to know when recess is because that is when the old people in front of you stop talking and you get to go have some fun. And most important, you need to know when the last bell of the day is. You need to know when you can get out because you are free and school is over. But you also need to know, perhaps one of the most important things, is the code of conduct for your school. How many of you have memorized the code of conduct for your school? Yeah. I had a feeling that nobody does that because, frankly, I don t think most of us know that the schools have a code of conduct. For example, this is Susquehanna School District s code of conduct and I m sure you have it memorized, don t you? Ah, yes, I m sure you do. This is Lower Dauphin s code of conduct. Anybody going to Lower Dauphin? So you have this committed to memory. And of course there are those of us who are going to Central Dauphin. This is 63 pages of the code of conduct for Central Dauphin.
Now, you are probably asking yourself, What is a code of conduct and why do I have to know it? Well, it is very simple. A code of conduct is a set of rules that tell you how to act and what to do in some very specific situations. For example, in Central Dauphin s code of conduct, these are some of the entries in the table of contents: Absences Attendance Bullying Disciple Dress Field Trips Fighting Free Speech Patriotism Privacy Religion Searches Vandalism Weapons That s just some of the items in the table of contents. And these rules keep you and everyone else safe by maintaining order in the schools and that is why a code of conduct is so important: it puts everybody on the same page in terms of your behavior and that s why every school has one, whether you have read it or not. Now, you can go get the code of conduct off the web for all of the schools, but I want to tell you something about codes of conduct. They may different from place to place, but God has a code of conduct and you probably already know what it is. It is not a list of rules that are found in a book. That s called The Law and that s a lot about what the Old Testament is about. But the code of conduct for followers of Christ is not a bunch of rules in a book. It has to do a lot with what Jesus had to say with his disciples in Matthew 22. A group of scholars and experts got together. I want you to think about school tomorrow and think about a bunch of guys getting together on the playground, right? And they think they know a whole lot and
they wanted to bully Jesus with their knowledge. They wanted to make him look bad in front of the crowd, in front of everybody else on the playground. So one of them stepped forward and asked Teacher, what s the most important lesson God wants me to learn? And this is what Jesus said: Love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and all your mind and all your strength. This teaching comes first. But there is another that matters just as much. Love others as you love yourself. The code of conduct for a faithful life begins and ends not with a bunch of rules, but with love. God s code of conduct isn t a list of rules. It is something not found in commandments and teachings and regulations found in a special book. It is a relationship based on God s love for us and based on our decision to love others. And God s love for us is often expressed to us in a whole bunch of promises. These are just the seven that are easiest to remember: God promises I am faithful and God invites us to live so that other people can have faith in us, not that we are perfect, but that we ll do what we say we ll do. God promises I choose you and invites us to promise to choose to share ourselves with each other. God promises I love you and God invites us to love one another and to make that promise.
God promises I am with you so you be with each other if they are in need. God says I will always hear you. Let us, therefore, listen to each other. God says I will take care of you. Let us, therefore, care for each other. And God says I will never leave you. Therefore let us be and stay with each other as long as we can and as long as there is a need. Now I realize that is a lot to remember, so I thought it might be kind of fun to give you a special backpack that has those seven promises written on it. You can use this inside your other backpack or you can put stuff in it and tie it up and wear it like a backpack. Is that a good thing to remember? It is a way for us, and I m going to give them to you right after the blessing of the backpack, it is a good way for us to remember all of God s promises to us and what God invites us to promise to each other. Now, one of the things that we do to remind each other of those promises is called The Blessing of the Backpacks so what I would like you guys to do is to stand up, if you could, and this may be the toughest thing you ll be asked to do all school year long. I want you to form a big circle. Can you do that? Form one circle; make it big enough to include everybody. Can you do that? You ll need your backpack, somebody left theirs there on the steps. So, everybody in a big circle? Now, what the rest of us are going to do is we re going to say a bunch of prayers according to this piece of liturgy found in the bulletin, so let us turn to that at this time and let us share in a time of blessing.
Blessing of The Backpacks The disciples started arguing over which of them would be most famous. When Jesus realized how much this mattered to them, he brought a child to his side. Whoever accepts this child as if the child were me, accepts me, he said. And whoever accepts me, accepts the One who sent me. You become great by accepting your abilities, not asserting your superiority. Your spirit, not your size, makes the difference. Luke 9:46-48 One: In every age and station of life, God invites us to discover and use our gifts. There is always something we can do; tasks that help us to serve Him in the world. This process is called discipleship. When we are young, we are in need of those who will teach us about God s world. We seek caring mentors who will help us to understand what it means to be part of the human family. And even when we are finished with our formal education, we cherish the guidance of friends and loved ones to help us learn new lessons and become wise in our living. ALL: O Lord, we celebrate the invitation to see you more clearly, to love you more dearly, and to follow you more nearly, day by day. One: Let us pray for the parents and families who continue to watch their children grow in knowledge and grace, and who mark this new beginning beside them (the families of all students are invited to stand). ALL: Loving God, you have granted these families the privilege of nurturing the students among us. We lift them before you and pray that the blessings of patience and perseverance may sustain them in this new school year. May their homes be a place where truth is sought and wisdom is celebrated. Amen. One: Let us pray for those who will use their gifts and their energies in the education of children of all ages (all school employees and volunteers in education are invited to stand). ALL: We thank God for your dedication to teaching our youth. Be assured that the Lord will bless your efforts. By the power of the Spirit, you will receive the resources necessary for you to accomplish great things & small miracles in his name. May the
weeks & months ahead be satisfying & inspiring to you & enlightening to those you serve. As one who bears the light of Christ, there is no higher calling than leading someone to the truth. Amen. One: Your Word, O God, is a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path. Let us pray for all who are beginning a new chapter in their education (all students are invited to stand). ALL: Almighty God, fountain of all wisdom; we are humbled by the great mysteries of your Creation. Open the minds and hearts of these students. Equip them with curiosity and resolve, with insight and inspiration, that they may experience the wonder and awe of enlightenment. May their passion for knowledge be equaled by their commitment to lead others in the Way, the Truth and the Life. Amen. One: Jesus told his followers, Let the children come to me; do not get in their way. These little ones already know how to embrace God in their lives. Let us pray for them as they begin a new school year. ALL: God, bless these backpacks and the children who will use them. Let them not be afraid as they encounter new situations, meet new friends, and face new challenges. Be with them as they grow older and wiser with each passing day. Show them how to shine in the light of your Love. Help them to become everything you have created them to be, in the name of Jesus our brother. Amen. Now, I promised I would give you this special backpack that has the Promises of God, so the way that we do things according to the code of conduct in school is that you step up and you take one because God s love is expressed in His promises and in the promises we make as students of Christ. Enjoy tomorrow. Have a blessed day. We are thinking about all of you and we know that God will be with you. Thank you for sharing in our time this morning.
Message Everyday of my life was recorded in your book before one of them had taken place. Her first day of life was September 4, 1920. It was a Saturday. It was beautiful. Her first birthday, a year later, however, was an ugly and horribly stormy day. Then came a sister, the first day to be a sibling, an older sister. May 22, 1924. Her first day of school, September 7, 2026, a day that she remember way long into her adulthood because it was a day that she got to become her own person, at least according to her recollection. The last day of middle school, the day of graduation in 1936. The last day of high school, June 6 of 1940. Several years later, the first day of work at Bell Telephone as her first full time job, October 11.
The first trip to the beach. She couldn t remember which beach it was, but the fact that she is holding a fish means she is a better fisherman than I am. This was in 1946, not long after the end of the Second World War. Her first day of marriage, barely a year later, 1947. The first Christmas that they had as a family, where husband and wife got to invite relatives into their home, 1947. The last day of work, the day of retirement, April 12 of 1975 after thirty-some years working for Bell Telephone. The first birthday that she celebrated as a widow, September 6 of 1977. First anniversary of her second marriage, 1981. First trip to Vegas, what happens in Vegas supposedly stays in Vegas, so don t know how good a time she had.
First trip to New Orleans for Mardi Gras, 1986. Her first trip abroad to Holland, November 12 of 1989. She is glad to report that she set foot on all seven continents and had crossed all five oceans and I asked her about that Antarctica thing. She said Oh, yes, on a cruise around Cape Horn, a helicopter went and set down on the Antarctica ice shelf. They chopped a block of ice off, the brought it back to the ship and everybody got to stand on it and got their picture taken. A bit of a stretch? Maybe, maybe not. She was also proud to have had visited every state in the union except Wyoming. Wyoming is huge! How could you miss that one? Her last day in Pittsburgh was July 22 a year ago. She had lived in an apartment throughout her retirement years and all of her traveling and she had had a fall and it was decided that it was not a safe place for her to be anymore. So the last day of the only place that she had ever known as her home was just a year ago. And later that week her very first visit to Calvary came on Sunday, July 28 a year ago. Do you know who this person is? On December 8 of last year, she celebrated her first day as a member of this congregation and barely a month ago, she passed into the first day of eternity. The last day of this life; the first day of life everlasting.
Eveline Faith Thompson. See the word Faith, her middle name, is the only thing that equips us for all the first days and all of the last days of life. And one of the things that she experienced when she came here a year ago was a new understanding of what it meant to be churched and there are several people that she actually named to thank for that. And I could name names this morning, but why bother? It should be all of us who take great pains to make sure that every person sitting here this morning is welcomed and included. And that is what this sacrament is about. It is called The Last Supper. It is the last time Jesus spent with his disciples. But when Eveline came to Calvary, it was like celebrating the Last Supper for the first time in your presence, in your embrace, in your love. And so as we share these elements this morning and celebrate the life of one who has now ended the journey in the last day of this earthly life, but who continues to celebrate day after day of joy and thanksgiving in Eternity, we recall the words that Jesus shared with his disciples on his last night. For he took bread and he broke it and it handed it to them and said Take and eat. This is my body which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me. And then after supper, he took the cup and after he had given thanks for God he shared it with them and said Drink from this all of you. This is the cup of the New Covenant which is shed for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins. This is the Last Supper for the first time for each of us because God is doing something new this morning and if we are open to what it is and what it might mean for us, then this is the last day of who we were and this is the first day of who we may become. It is a time to recognize what God is doing, what God has done and what God has promised to do for us. Let us receive the sacrament for the first time. (The sacrament is celebrated and hymns are sung.)