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10:30 am Worship

 

Wednesday, August 6, 2025

Psalm 119: 101-103

¹⁰¹ I restrain my feet from every evil way, that I may keep your word.
¹⁰² I do not shrink from your judgments, because you yourself have taught me.
¹⁰³ How sweet are your words to my taste! they are sweeter than honey to my mouth.

 

complicit (adj): association or participation in or as if in a wrongful act

I often wonder as we use the long communion liturgy from the United Methodist hymnal how many people really agree or even think about the confessions we read aloud each month.

“We have failed to be an obedient church,

“We have not done your will,

“We have broken your law,

“We have rebelled against your love,

“We have not loved our neighbors,

“And we have not heard the cry of the needy.”

In effect, every time we share communion, we confess we have been complicit in wrongful acts. And what if we extended our confession beyond the church? Would we willingly admit aloud that our society, our government, and our culture is sinful? What would it say about us if we were willing every month for all of our lives to read such confessions aloud and admit to knowingly allowing the sin to continue without objection?

Are our communities large and small called to follow Jesus or not?

I was engaged recently in a conversation regarding aliens residing in the United States, and the man with whom I was talking kept speaking about the need for order and law in the process. He stopped speaking when I asked a question: Are we required to obey a law that is not just?

What if the laws, rules, and order now governing us are becoming more and more unjust? What, then, as Christians ought we to do? I saw a news broadcast recently concerning a man who had come to America legally, fleeing from oppressive rule in his homeland. He entered legally, appeared in the immigration courts as required, met every requirement of the law. The judge looked at him, approved of his behavior, and explained the next steps. Then a lawyer representing the government stood and told the judge the government did not wish to move forward with the case. The judge immediately ordered the case closed, immigration officers arrested the man, and he will presumably be thrown in prison to await deportation back to his own death.

Was this just?

Worse, am I complicit? What, if I wish to follow Jesus, should I do?

Must I now confess month after month, year after year, all the days of my life to my own sin in this matter? Will I, like some Nazi madman, stand before my God some day and say, “I was just following orders. It was the law. I was concerned about ‘order’ in my society.”

The gospel truly spoken requires us to break the rules and to reject the culture if injustice is present. The apostles, those fearful men who had followed Jesus and had run away when he was arrested, waited after his death for the arrival of the Holy Spirit. After it arrived, they did this:

They shared all property and held it in common, giving it out to those in need.

Peter visited the home of a Gentile.

Peter and John refused to obey the rules and continued to speak about Jesus. They were thrown in prison.

Stephen spoke aloud about love as his neighbors stoned him to death.

Paul was arrested, beaten, and imprisoned repeatedly. His story ends with him in prison.

Tradition holds that a number of apostles were, like Jesus, crucified.

And what have I done as I stand in my complicity and confess my sin, then go forth to continue my participation in that very same sin? What testimony do I offer as I stand silent and watch? How should I feel and what emotions ought to fill my heart as I go forward to receive the body and blood of Jesus? Am I not doing the same thing as those who drove in the nails?

Does my commitment to Jesus extend only to the bounds of my own comfort and no further?

I fell in love some years ago with the gospel of Mark and, in particular, with his version of the beginning of the ministry of Jesus. Mark tells us that the Spirit “drove” Jesus into the wilderness to pray, fast, and confront demons.

Let your Spirit and your Word drive me into that same wilderness, my Lord.

 

Hymn of the day: Days of Elijah. Online at Rossford UMC - Media.

 

 

Rev. Lawrence Keeler