September 27 Worship Service

Our September 27 Sunday outdoor worship service is available on video through Facebook. You may view it without being a member of Facebook. Our social spacing seating arrangement assures minimal risk when you come in person.

Click on picture to view video

The October 4 worship service will be held in our church sanctuary with members and friends in attendance. It is scheduled to be streamed live on the DeSoto Redeemer Facebook page. We will post a direct link to the recording here as soon as it is possible after the service.

We are glad to share our worship with you. Click on “Contact Us” above to find out more about our faith family and what we believe.

September 27 Sermon
Ezekiel 18:1-4, 25-32 | Psalm 25:1-9
Philippians 2:1-13 | Matthew 21:23-32

There is an honest question, sort of, for Jesus today. Jesus is disrupting the things in the Temple (and around Jerusalem generally) with his teachings and healings. The Chief priests and the elders ask, “By what authority are you doing these things?” They are probably asking this question to put Jesus in his place, make him slow down and realize that he is in the sacred setting of God’s Temple, which at least, should put him in his place. Or what they consider to be his place. Thus begins another fencing match between them.
And, of course, Jesus turns it around on them, with his usual style of answering a question with a question. They never really learn. “Answer me this, by what authority did John baptize?” and by unsaid extension, that Jesus’ actions have the same authority.

The priests, wanting to maintain the status quo, don’t exactly answer (today, we would call it politics or diplomacy). They have their reasons, Jesus has trapped them again. “If we say John had divine authority, then Jesus will say, “Why didn’t you believe him.”” If we say “Human authority, his own,” that would set the crowds into an uproar and possibly a riot, since the crowds are already considering John a prophet. So, they choose the safe, copout answer, “We don’t know.” And Jesus ripostes, “Then I won’t tell you either.”

Instead, Jesus tells them a parable, the parable of the Two Sons. And, remember it is aimed right at these priests and elders. And, in a way, it is an answer to their question. The one son says that he won’t do as his father says, but later feels bad about it, changes his mind and goes to work. In other words, he repents. The other son says that he will do as the father says, and decides not to after all. Guess which son represents the priests and elders?

The parable is aimed at the priests and elders who may say that they are doing the work of God, but aren’t. They aren’t toiling for God’s kingdom. In this setting, they haven’t even made up their minds whether John the Baptist was sent by God or not. Instead of taking the risk of doing what God wants, they would rather play it safe, and maintain that old status quo, and stay in the Temple where it is nice and safe, except for an occasional uprising outside. They aren’t walking their talk.

On the other hand; and here is where they really get insulted: sinners, even the hated tax collectors and the prostitutes are told that they are getting into the kingdom of heaven ahead of the priests and elders. Why? Because 1) They believed John, and that John was from God, and 2) they repented, turned around, and are now working for God’s kingdom. Is it any wonder, that after this very public insult, that the chief priests and elders want Jesus dead? They got sour grapes, and now their own teeth are set on edge. I love that saying. If you’ve ever bitten into a sour grape, you understand that saying. We should try to reinvigorate it in our culture.

There is a double theme in the text today:
Recognizing God’s messenger. Knowing and believing, first that John was sent by God, but more importantly for us, that Jesus is sent by God. That he is the Christ, and so is God Incarnate for us.

Repentance. That is: hearing God’s message, and turning our lives around to do those things which are right with God (that is being righteous).
Both are necessary. The first son is praised for doing the Father’s will, even though he at first refused. We are called to that same kind of repentance. The messenger who calls us to that is God’s Son himself: Jesus Christ, who died for our sins, and was raised by the glory of the Father. He calls to us, to repent of the ways in which we have fallen; and turn and join him to work in His Father’s vineyard, which is wherever we may find ourselves. That is a life of faith and repentance.

The work of the vineyard is that of Word and deed. It is proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus Christ to all people, and working for God’s peace in this world. Both of which we are called to do in our everyday lives as we are given opportunity, even in the midst of a pandemic. Let us join Christ there, in this fallen world in which we find ourselves. But first, join Him at the altar, and be strengthened by him in faith for that work, the tasks which he sets before us as we prepare to reenter the vineyard.
Pastor Rose

September 20 Worship Service

Our September 20 Sunday worship service is available on video through Facebook. You may view it without being a member of Facebook. Our social spacing seating arrangement assures minimal risk when you come in person.

Click on picture to view video

The September 27 worship service will be held outdoors behind our sanctuary, weather permitting, with members and friends in attendance. It is scheduled to be streamed live on the DeSoto Redeemer Facebook page. We will post a direct link to the recording here as soon as it is possible after the service.

We are glad to share our worship with you. Click on “Contact Us” above to find out more about our faith family and what we believe.

September 20 Sermon
Jonah 3:10-4:11 | Psalm 145:1-8
Philippians 1:21-30 | Matthew 20:1-16

“Are you envious because I am generous?” That is the most telling line in this parable. Indeed, it is the central point of the story. True, it is a reasonable question to come from the owner at the worker’s response to the wages situation. Or, as we know, looking at the parable, it is a fair question from God to us. And we also know, although we do not like to admit it, that the answer to this question, from us, is too often, “Yes!” Too often, we do in fact begrudge God His generosity. Human beings have always been that way. I don’t know why. Sin, yes, but which one, either Pride, Envy or Greed. We don’t like to share, and our God shouldn’t either.
That is one problem which we have with the Gospel. It is nothing short of a generous outpouring of God’s grace upon all people. It is free to all. We don’t like that. We, like the laborers in the story, especially don’t like to share with those Johnnie Come Latelys, 11th Hour Christians (shouldn’t it be 23rd Hour Christians?). But, that is because we also don’t like to remember that God is also being generous with us!! We don’t deserve what we receive either! It is all a free gift from God’s generous grace. And God has been gracious for a long time, and to some very ungracious people.
Look at Jonah’s lesson for today. That is exactly what is going on. Jonah is one of my favorite books in the Old Testament. It is actually terribly funny. Some Bible scholars believe that it is a satire. But most people don’t read its short four chapters. They get hung up on the “Whale” story. It is an amazing story, and it relates to Jesus’ parable this morning. It, too, is concerned with God’s generosity.

Where we pick up the story today, Jonah is mad, pouting. Why? Because God has forgiven the whole city of Nineveh! When God first calls Jonah to go to Nineveh, at the beginning of the book, Jonah doesn’t want to go. Why? Jonah doesn’t like the people of Nineveh, in fact he hates them. It is the capital city of the hated Assyrian Empire, which has conquered Israel. And, Jonah is almost certain that God is going to forgive them anyway. Jonah sees absolutely no reason for him to go to all of the effort. He would rather see them destroyed with a great heavenly down pouring of fire and brimstone. That, to Jonah’s thinking, is what they deserve!

Jonah even goes to great lengths of getting out of it. He hops the first cruise ship out of port heading in the opposite direction, Tarshish (Spain), finds himself in a terrible storm, aboard a floundering ship, and then thrown overboard, at his own request, and swallowed by a “great fish.” All to be vomited up on the beach next to Nineveh (in other words, if God wants you to be somewhere, you may as well go, He’ll get you there one way or another – and you probably won’t like the other).

Reluctantly, Jonah goes into the city, figures, “Well, as long as I’m here.” He probably cleaned himself up first. He probably looked pretty bad after spending three days in the belly of the whale (Christian apologists have always related this to the three days Christ spends in the tomb).He grudgingly calls the people to repentance, very quietly and unenthusiastically. And figuring that no one will repent, he then goes to find a front row seat for the action. But nothing happens. Jonah doesn’t realize that he was right, God wanted to forgive Nineveh, they repented (in spite of Jonah’s half-hearted cries), and God did forgive them. So, Jonah sulks.

That brings us to the bush (cucumber bush) in the lesson this morning. It is God’s object lesson for Jonah. It grows in a night, dies in a night. Jonah liked it, gets angry at its demise. So much so, that he wants to die. He is a bit of an extremist. Jonah is very small-minded (but God used him anyway). Jonah was upset over a plant, while God was concerned with all the people of Nineveh. That is the difference between God and Jonah, between God and us. God is generous to all of his creatures. Human beings do tend to be envious and petty.

It is the same lesson in the parable in the Gospel lesson. All of the laborers are paid the same. Whether you work in the vineyard, come to faith, early or late. We are paid the same from God’s generosity. All who have faith in Christ are saved. We are the least, the last. We cannot save ourselves. And we thanks to sin, do not even deserve the wages which have been given to us from God. But, God chooses to make us first from his grace. Do not envy this, like the other laborers in the parable, or even Jonah, rather it is something to be glad and rejoice in! God strives to save all of his children. That is after all, the very Gospel itself. We are saved by God’s grace through our faith in Jesus Christ. That is given to “all who believe and are baptized.” We are saved. We are paid, not what we deserve, but from God’s generosity. Thank God for God’s exceedingly generous grace. That is the Gospel!
Pastor Rose