2026-08-23 - CourtneyR.dev's 2nd Brain

# St. John's United Church of Christ — August 23, 2026 **"Ten Commandments: Tuned into God"** *Bulletin cover: "God's Sustaining Presence" (Edd Scheer)* *Please stand in body or in spirit (\*)* *Service video: [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSPTIhpuX5Y) — every timestamp below links directly into the recording. The stream opens ~29 minutes before worship; the gathering begins at [00:29:30](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSPTIhpuX5Y&t=1770s).* ## Liturgical Context ### Christian Liturgical Calendar - **Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost** (Proper 16 / Ordinary 21), Year A - Liturgical color: **Green** (Season after Pentecost, May 31 – Nov 26, 2026) - Roman Catholic calendar: optional memorial of **St. Rose of Lima** (first canonized saint of the Americas) falls on August 23 but is superseded by the Sunday liturgy; **St. Bartholomew the Apostle** follows on Monday, August 24 - Week two of St. John's four-week Ten Commandments series, following [[2026-08-16]] ("Nineteen Comes Before Twenty") ### Jewish Calendar - **10 Elul 5786** - Second full week of Elul — *cheshbon hanefesh*, the accounting of the soul, running toward Rosh Hashanah (evening of September 11, 2026). A Sunday spent on the first table of the Decalogue lands squarely inside the month whose whole discipline is auditing one's relationship with God before auditing anything else. - Shabbat August 22 was **Parashat Ki Teitzei** (Deuteronomy 21:10–25:19) — the parashah traditionally counted as containing more commandments (74 of the 613) than any other portion in the Torah. It sits directly against a sermon on commandments 1–4: Ki Teitzei is the Torah at its most granular and casuistic, while Exodus 20:3-11 is the Torah at its most foundational. Worth noting the contrast if the sermon touches on how law scales from principle to particular. ### Ecumenical & Global Observances - **International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and Its Abolition** (UNESCO), August 23 — marking the 1791 Haitian uprising. Notable adjacency: the Decalogue's prologue ("who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery") is the verse the sermon series has been building on, and it is the same verse the abolitionist and Black church traditions read as the interpretive key to the whole law. - **International Day Commemorating the Victims of Acts of Violence Based on Religion or Belief** (UN), August 22. ### Lectionary Readings (Revised Common Lectionary) Today's service follows St. John's own Ten Commandments series rather than the RCL. For reference, RCL Year A, Proper 16 (August 23, 2026): - Semi-continuous: Exodus 1:8—2:10; Psalm 124 - Complementary: Isaiah 51:1-6; Psalm 138 - Epistle: Romans 12:1-8 - Gospel: Matthew 16:13-20 The Narrative Lectionary Year 4 (John) cycle concluded at Pentecost (May 24, 2026); the 2026–27 fall cycle has not yet resumed, so there is no NL cross-reference this week. ### Connection to Today's Message Exodus 20:3-11 is the **first table** of the Decalogue in Reformed numbering — no other gods, no graven images, do not misuse the name, keep the Sabbath. All four are God-directed, which is exactly what the sermon title claims: *tuned into God*. Last week established the frame (relationship precedes law, Exodus 19 before Exodus 20); this week works the half of the law that Matthew 22:34-40 calls the first and greatest commandment. Matthew 22 is read again this week, apparently as the series' recurring lens. Three quieter resonances worth watching for: 1. **Psalm 19 is the ideal companion text and probably not an accident.** The responsive reading is a remix of Psalm 19, the one psalm that deliberately welds creation-revelation (vv. 1-6: the heavens telling glory, the sun running its course) to Torah-revelation (vv. 7-11: the law of the LORD is perfect, reviving the soul). Pairing it with the first table means the service is quietly arguing that the God who is known through the ordinary sun and stars is the same God the commandments are tuned to. 2. **Exodus 20:11 grounds Sabbath in creation** — "in six days the LORD made heaven and earth" — and the congregation then confesses the **Nicene Creed**, which opens on the maker of heaven and earth. Creation is doing structural work across three separate elements of this service. 3. **Hymn 33's own scripture citations are the wilderness-provision texts** (Exodus 13:21-22, the pillar of cloud and fire; 16:11-17, manna; 17:1-7, water from the rock) — the same sustaining acts that ground the Decalogue's prologue, and the same phrase as the bulletin cover: *God's sustaining presence*. > **Flag resolved:** The bulletin lists **Nicene Creed — Hymnal Companion C-10**, the same page reference last week's bulletin gave for the **Apostles' Creed**. The recording confirms the Nicene Creed was in fact recited in full at [01:17:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSPTIhpuX5Y&t=4620s), so this is not a bulletin error — the companion evidently prints both creeds at C-10. Two further details for [[Creed Study]]: the congregation used the **ecumenical (ICET/ELLC) English text** ("of one being with the Father," "became truly human," "we look for the resurrection of the dead"), and it retained the **filioque** — "who proceeds from the Father and the Son." A UCC congregation in the German Reformed line reciting the Western filioque form, in a service that also names icons approvingly, is a nicely complicated data point for a "testimonies not tests" tradition. ## Order of Worship ### Gathering #### Gathering Song: "This is the Day" Traditional chorus drawn from ![[Psalm 118#24]]. #### Unison Welcome > "No matter who you are or where you are on life's journey, you are welcome here" #### Announcements — [00:30:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSPTIhpuX5Y&t=1800s) Pastor Caroline opened by invoking Psalm 118:24 directly ("this is indeed the day the Lord has made") and welcomed both in-person and online worshipers before the unison welcome. **Camp recap — Lloyd Beers and Diana Kongkeattikul [00:30:30](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSPTIhpuX5Y&t=1830s)** - Thanks for Saturday's (Aug 22) prayer gathering at **St. John's Camp**. Attendees shared camp memories going back to childhood and counselor years — including stories about "the old blue bus." - Diana's thank-yous: **Dick** for mowing and grounds; **Renee, Mary Lee, and Rebecca** for faithfully keeping the camp up (she and Lloyd found little left to do at Friday's work day); **Neath** for music ("we want more of that" — an invitation to have her back); **Katie** and **Kara** for setup. - **Connie Evans** singled out for taking the group "down a memory road trip" — laughter and warmth noted. - Lloyd signaled that **more prayer gatherings are being planned for the winter season**, with announcements to follow. **Also announced:** - Next Sunday's **pancake breakfast at 8:45** in Fellowship Hall, with **worship also in Fellowship Hall** — "bring your appetite and your singing voice." *(Note: the printed bulletin says only that worship is in Fellowship Hall; the live announcement confirms it.)* - The **September *Spirit*** newsletter is out and available — "there is a lot happening in the life of our church." *A second block of announcements came later, from Roxanne Davenport just before the Children's Message — see [00:49:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSPTIhpuX5Y&t=2940s) below.* #### Passing of the Peace — [00:33:30](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSPTIhpuX5Y&t=2010s) Introduced with an unscripted line worth keeping: *"Find your happy place in the presence of God and community."* > "The peace of Christ be with you" — "And also with you" #### Prelude *Occupies the long gap [00:34:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSPTIhpuX5Y&t=2040s)–[00:38:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSPTIhpuX5Y&t=2280s), overlapping the passing of the peace.* #### Chiming of the Trinity — [00:38:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSPTIhpuX5Y&t=2280s) > "We worship in the name of God, Creator, Christ, and Holy Spirit. Amen." *(Note the order in the printed bulletin is Peace → Chiming → Prelude; live it ran Peace → Prelude → Chiming, with the Trinity invocation immediately preceding the Call to Worship.)* #### \*Call to Worship — [00:38:15](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSPTIhpuX5Y&t=2295s) Adapted from Thom M. Shuman, posted on Lectionary Liturgies. Read as printed. We are called to love God with our hearts. **We will do so, when we welcome those who are tossed aside by the world.** We are called to love God with our souls. **We will do so, when the brokenness around us transforms us into more compassionate people.** We are called to love God with our minds. **We will do so, when we think less of our needs, and see each person as our neighbor, our sister, our brother, our sibling.** May our worship reflect our love of God and neighbor! #### \*Hymn No. 33: "Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah" — [00:39:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSPTIhpuX5Y&t=2340s) WORDS: William Williams, 1745; trans. st. 1, Peter Williams, 1771 (Exodus 13:21-22; 16:11-17; 17:1-7) · MUSIC: John Hughes, 1907 · TUNE: CWM RHONDDA (8.7.8.7.8.7) · Public domain · *(Higher key, No. 37)* > **Hymnal identification — open question.** Announced live as "number 33 in **the green hymnal**." This is *not* the *New Century Hymnal* (red, and its numbering doesn't match). The numbering pattern across this service — 33, 405, with Gloria Patri at 704 and Doxology at 706 — is a service-music-in-the-700s layout typical of the evangelical/ecumenical hymnals of the 1980s–90s rather than the UCC's own book. Worth checking the pew rack and recording the title, since it governs how hymn attributions and copyright status get cited in these notes going forward. 1. Guide me, O Thou great Jehovah, pilgrim through this barren land; I am weak, but Thou art mighty; hold me with Thy powerful hand; Bread of heaven, Bread of heaven, feed me till I want no more, feed me till I want no more. 2. Open now the crystal fountain, whence the healing stream doth flow; let the fire and cloudy pillar lead me all my journey through; strong Deliverer, strong Deliverer, be Thou still my strength and shield, be Thou still my strength and shield. 3. When I tread the verge of Jordan, bid my anxious fears subside; bear me through the swelling current, land me safe on Canaan's side; songs of praises, songs of praises, I will ever give to Thee, I will ever give to Thee. #### Call to Confession — [00:41:30](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSPTIhpuX5Y&t=2490s) Let us confess our sins before God and one another. #### Prayer of Confession > Gracious God, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, you have promised to receive us when we come to you. We confess that we have sinned against you in thought, word and deed. We have disobeyed your law. We have not loved you or our neighbors as we should. Forgive us, O God, and grant that we may live and serve you in newness of life; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. #### Kyrie Hymnal Companion C-4. *Sung in the [00:42:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSPTIhpuX5Y&t=2520s)–[00:43:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSPTIhpuX5Y&t=2580s) gap; not spoken, so no text captured on the recording.* #### Assurance of Pardon — [00:43:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSPTIhpuX5Y&t=2580s) From the UCC Book of Worship. Spoken as printed. God hears the confession of our hearts and lips. Through Jesus Christ we are forgiven all our sins, and by the Holy Spirit we are empowered for new life. **We believe the good news of Jesus Christ. Amen.** #### \*Glory Be to the Father No. 704 Gloria Patri — traditional doxology, public domain. Text as commonly printed: Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen, amen. *(Exact wording of the No. 704 setting not printed in the bulletin — confirm against the hymnal if the congregation uses an inclusive-language variant.)* ### Word #### Scripture Reading: Matthew 22:34-40 — [00:44:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSPTIhpuX5Y&t=2640s) The Great Commandment — read again this week as the series' recurring frame. Lector: Chani Wolfe. Full embeds below in [[#Scripture and Sermon]]. > **The lector read past the printed boundary.** The bulletin prints vv. 34-40, but the reading continued through **v. 44** — Jesus' counter-question about whose son the Messiah is, and the citation of Psalm 110:1 ("The Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand"). Whether intentional or a page-turn, it changes the texture of the reading: instead of ending on the two commandments as a settled summary, it ends with Jesus turning the testing back on the testers. Nothing in the sermon picked this up. Translation sounds like **NRSVue** ("a lawyer, asked him a question to test him"). #### Responsive Reading: "Ordinary and Astounding" (a remix of Psalm 19) — [00:45:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSPTIhpuX5Y&t=2700s) By Layton E. Williams, from *The Words of Her Mouth: Psalms for the Struggle*, edited by Martha Spong (The Pilgrim Press). Copyrighted — not reproduced here. Summary of the movement, preserving the Leader/People alternation: the reader confesses that the sun and stars provoke belief in God not only through their vastness but through their steadfastness — a constant presence whether or not their shape is visible. The congregation's responses find beauty in the daily rising and setting, in the pairing of dark with light, new with old, welcome with release. The reading then turns inward: these ordinary, everyday realities of creation are also astounding, and they testify that God is at work in all things — *and in me, even in me*. It closes with a petition to become the same kind of witness the sun and stars are: an ordinary and astounding testament to grace. Read live essentially as printed, and closed with the standard formula — "The word of God for the people of God. / Thanks be to God." Worth noting that a *remix* was given the same closing formula as scripture itself; the congregation was invited to receive Williams's poem as the word of God for them. That's a defensible liturgical choice in a "testimonies not tests" tradition, but it is a choice, and it went unmarked. Underlying scripture embedded below in [[#Scripture and Sermon]]. #### Special Music: "Take My Life and Let It Be" — Debbie Dilling and Gary Crum — [00:47:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSPTIhpuX5Y&t=2820s) WORDS: Frances Ridley Havergal, 1874 · Public domain · *(Sung in the [00:47:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSPTIhpuX5Y&t=2820s)–[00:49:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSPTIhpuX5Y&t=2940s) gap; no spoken introduction, so tune and verse selection remain unconfirmed.)* 1. Take my life, and let it be consecrated, Lord, to Thee. Take my moments and my days; let them flow in ceaseless praise. 2. Take my hands, and let them move at the impulse of Thy love. Take my feet, and let them be swift and beautiful for Thee. 3. Take my voice, and let me sing always, only, for my King. Take my lips, and let them be filled with messages from Thee. 4. Take my silver and my gold; not a mite would I withhold. Take my intellect, and use every power as Thou shalt choose. 5. Take my will, and make it Thine; it shall be no longer mine. Take my heart, it is Thine own; it shall be Thy royal throne. 6. Take my love; my Lord, I pour at Thy feet its treasure store. Take myself, and I will be ever, only, all for Thee. *(Note: this is the hymn the Narrative Lectionary worship resources list for the Woman at the Well — "Take my life, that I may be," NCH 448 / ELW 583 — appearing here as special music instead. The self-offering theme runs directly into the first table's claim on undivided allegiance.)* #### Second Announcements — Roxanne Davenport — [00:49:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSPTIhpuX5Y&t=2940s) - **Youth Pickleball Clinic** this afternoon still has spots and plenty of food; signed parental permission required, blank forms available. - **Family Fun Day, September 13** — bounce house, DJ, petting zoo confirmed, but **volunteers needed** to run games and crafts. - **New church school year** starting in a few weeks: leaders are in place but **helpers are needed**. Under safe church policy, **two adults are required with every group of children**, including Children's Corner where one adult may already be planning the activity. Helpers need clearances **and mandated reporter training**. #### Children's Message — Roxanne Davenport — [00:51:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSPTIhpuX5Y&t=3060s) *Children's Corner will be offered following the Children's Message* Part of a summer series Roxanne has been running: **"divine wisdom from the animal kingdom via the Bible."** Two weeks remain (this week and next). Headset battery was dead, delivered unamplified. Last week's installment was Chani Wolfe on wolves; this week: **bears**. **Natural history segment (elicited from the children):** bears can be aggressive if provoked or hungry; omnivores (honey, berries, fruit, vegetables, meat); usually more afraid of humans than humans realize; cubs; dens; eight bear species named with help from the kids (black, polar, grizzly, koala, panda, sun); they live in family groups rather than large communities; mammals, live birth. **Biblical survey — "bears are mentioned 12 times in the Bible":** - **Proverbs** — the bear as a warning image for wicked rulers (cf. ![[Proverbs 28#15]]) - **1 Samuel** — David's account of fighting off bears as a shepherd, as evidence of courage (cf. 1 Samuel 17:34-36) - **Isaiah** — the cow and the bear grazing together in the peaceable kingdom (cf. Isaiah 11:7) - **2 Kings 2:23-25** — Elisha and the two she-bears, given the bulk of the time **The 2 Kings 2 treatment.** Roxanne framed it as "a story that often is not understood." Her reading: Elisha has just succeeded Elijah and is traveling to a wicked town; the "young boys" of the text are not small children but **teenagers**, on the grounds that the Hebrew term covers roughly ages 15–30; they constitute "basically a gang"; their taunt — "Hey, baldy, why don't you go up?" — mocks Elijah's ascension and, under ancient "laws of respect," amounted to an insult carrying capital weight, effectively a death threat. The 42 were **mauled, not killed** ("it does not say they died"). Moral drawn: there are consequences to what we say; name-calling hurts even when we treat it lightly; disrespecting God's messenger is disrespecting God; "what does God tell us? Love your neighbor." Repeated twice: *"Maybe if more of us had a consequence, we'd be a little more careful with our words."* Closed with a joke — "Don't make me send the she-bears out to you" — and a prayer. Rev. Saxton was pulled into the bit twice ("Do you remember this story now, Caroline?" — "I had to look it up"), and Roxanne noted she hadn't known the story either: "I love teaching because I'm always learning." > **Worth a second look — see the [[#Hermeneutical Genealogy]] and [[#Lateral Transfer Risk Audit]] sections below.** The delivery was warm and clearly affectionate, and the concern about casual cruelty in speech is a good one. But the interpretive machinery underneath is a recognizable apologetic move: the difficulty of the text (God kills/maims children for mockery) is dissolved by **upgrading the victims** — small boys become a threatening gang, taunting becomes a capital crime — so that the violence comes out proportionate. The Hebrew is *ne'arim qetannim*, "small boys," and *na'ar* does stretch across a wide age range, but *qetannim* pushes toward the young end, and the harmonization requires reading the diminutive against itself. This matters here beyond ordinary exegetical fussiness: it landed in the same service in which the sermon **declined** to engage Exodus 20:5-6 on generational punishment. The service therefore left the children with a fully-resolved theodicy of divine retribution and the adults with an unresolved one. #### Scripture Reading: Exodus 20:3-11 — [01:01:30](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSPTIhpuX5Y&t=3690s) The first table of the Decalogue. Full embeds below in [[#Scripture and Sermon]]. **Read from the Common English Bible**, not the NRSVue — confirmed by the distinctive renderings: "I am a passionate God" (for *el qanna*, usually "jealous"), "as if it were of no significance" (for "in vain"), and, in the Sabbath commandment, **"or the immigrant who is living with you"** where NRSVue has "resident alien." That last one is not a neutral choice in August 2026, and it was read aloud without comment. *(The bulletin's boundaries hold: the reading begins at v. 3, skipping the prologue at vv. 1-2 — last week's load-bearing text. The sermon restored it thematically ("relationship comes before rules") but never re-read it.)* **Prayer for illumination** followed: "Spirit of the living God, fall afresh on us. May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable to you, O God, for you are our rock and our redeemer." — a direct quotation of **Psalm 19:14**, closing the loop with the day's responsive reading. Third appearance of Psalm 19 in the service. #### Sermon — Rev. Caroline E. Saxton — [01:03:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSPTIhpuX5Y&t=3780s) "Ten Commandments: Tuned into God" — full notes and analysis below. #### Nicene Creed: An Affirmation of Faith — [01:17:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSPTIhpuX5Y&t=4620s) Hymnal Companion C-10. Recited in full, ecumenical (ICET/ELLC) English text, **including the filioque**. See the resolved flag under [[#Connection to Today's Message]]. ### Response #### Sharing of Joys and Concerns — [01:19:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSPTIhpuX5Y&t=4740s) Opened with "As the body of Christ, we gather together and we pray together." Virginia volunteered first — "why not break the ice." *Names and details recorded in [[#Applications]] below for personal prayer use.* #### Prayers of the People and the Lord's Prayer — [01:24:30](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSPTIhpuX5Y&t=5070s) Pastoral prayer: "Holy One, you hear the prayers of our hearts and lips. You know what we need before we even ask, and you draw us together to be your body, to witness to your work and wonder and love." Named grieving, those needing healing, and "those who are trying to find respite in a weary world" — picking up Virginia's petition for caregiver burnout directly. *(The bulletin specifies the "Debts" form; the recording cuts off after "Our Father," so the debts/trespasses wording isn't confirmable from audio.)* #### Invitation to Giving — [01:26:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSPTIhpuX5Y&t=5160s) > "God invites us into relationship to be in community with God and one another. May the gifts that we share demonstrate our love for God and neighbor." *Nearly verbatim the same transition as August 16 — the relationship-before-rules frame is now built into the offering language for the whole series.* #### Offertory #### \*Offertory Response No. 706: "Praise God from Whom All Blessings Flow" WORDS: Thomas Ken, 1674 · TUNE: OLD HUNDREDTH · Public domain Praise God, from whom all blessings flow; praise Him, all creatures here below; praise Him above, ye heavenly host; praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen. *(As last week: the bulletin's title phrasing may signal an inclusive-language variant sung live that differs from this traditional Ken text.)* #### \*Prayer of Dedication From *Feasting on the Word Worship Companion*, edited by Kimberly Bracken Long. > O Lord our God, we want to follow all your commandments – to love only you, not worshiping the things of this world; to love our neighbor freely, not desiring for ourselves something they possess. Accept these offerings, we pray, and teach us to be generous, giving fully of ourselves that we may truly be the body of Christ in this world. Amen. *(Same prayer as August 16 — the series is reusing it weekly. Note that it names both tables, first and tenth commandments, in a single sentence.)* ### Sending #### \*Hymn No. 405: "Savior, Like a Shepherd Lead Us" — [01:31:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSPTIhpuX5Y&t=5460s) WORDS: Attr. Dorothy A. Thrupp, 1836 · MUSIC: William B. Bradbury, 1859 · TUNE: BRADBURY (8.7.8.7 D) · Public domain 1. Savior, like a shepherd lead us, much we need Thy tender care; in Thy pleasant pastures feed us, for our use Thy folds prepare: blessed Jesus, blessed Jesus, Thou hast bought us, Thine we are; blessed Jesus, blessed Jesus, Thou hast bought us, Thine we are. 2. We are Thine; do Thou befriend us, be the guardian of our way; keep Thy flock, from sin defend us, seek us when we go astray: blessed Jesus, blessed Jesus, hear, O hear us when we pray; blessed Jesus, blessed Jesus, hear, O hear us when we pray. 3. Thou hast promised to receive us, poor and sinful though we be; Thou hast mercy to relieve us, grace to cleanse, and power to free: blessed Jesus, blessed Jesus, early let us turn to Thee; blessed Jesus, blessed Jesus, early let us turn to Thee. 4. Early let us seek Thy favor; early let us do Thy will; blessed Lord and only Savior, with Thy love our beings fill: blessed Jesus, blessed Jesus, Thou hast loved us, love us still; blessed Jesus, blessed Jesus, Thou hast loved us, love us still. #### \*Commission & Benediction — [01:34:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSPTIhpuX5Y&t=5640s) > Go forth into the world in peace. Be of good courage. Hold fast to that which is good. Render to no one evil for evil. Strengthen the fainthearted. Support the weak. Help the afflicted. Honor all people. Love and serve the Lord, rejoicing in the power of the Holy Spirit. The love of God, with peace and joy, will each of us attend, and guide our ways through coming days until we meet again. *(Word-for-word identical to August 16 — this is the congregation's standing benediction, drawing on 1 Thessalonians 5:14. Public domain formulation.)* #### Postlude (seated) *Join us for a time of fellowship following the service!* ## Scripture and Sermon ### Scripture Reading Matthew 22:34-40 ![[Matthew 22#34]] ![[Matthew 22#35]] ![[Matthew 22#36]] ![[Matthew 22#37]] ![[Matthew 22#38]] ![[Matthew 22#39]] ![[Matthew 22#40]] *Read live through v. 44:* ![[Matthew 22#41]] ![[Matthew 22#42]] ![[Matthew 22#43]] ![[Matthew 22#44]] ### Additional Scripture Exodus 20:3-11 ![[Exodus 20#3]] ![[Exodus 20#4]] ![[Exodus 20#5]] ![[Exodus 20#6]] ![[Exodus 20#7]] ![[Exodus 20#8]] ![[Exodus 20#9]] ![[Exodus 20#10]] ![[Exodus 20#11]] *Prologue not included in the printed reading, but load-bearing for the series:* ![[Exodus 20#1]] ![[Exodus 20#2]] ### Responsive Reading The bulletin prints Layton E. Williams's "Ordinary and Astounding," a remix rather than a translation of Psalm 19 (paraphrased above under [[#Order of Worship]]). The underlying psalm, embedded here — note that vv. 1-6 are the creation half the remix draws on, and vv. 7-11 are the Torah half it leaves implicit but which the day's sermon supplies: ![[Psalm 19#1]] ![[Psalm 19#2]] ![[Psalm 19#3]] ![[Psalm 19#4]] ![[Psalm 19#5]] ![[Psalm 19#6]] ![[Psalm 19#7]] ![[Psalm 19#8]] ![[Psalm 19#9]] ![[Psalm 19#10]] ![[Psalm 19#11]] ![[Psalm 19#14]] ### Sermon "Ten Commandments: Tuned into God" — Rev. Caroline E. Saxton — [full sermon: 01:03:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSPTIhpuX5Y&t=3780s) #### Sermon Notes ##### Introduction — [01:03:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSPTIhpuX5Y&t=3780s) Opens not with the text but with a **hymn**: Carolyn Winfrey Gillette's "I Have Brought You out of Egypt," commissioned by *Presbyterian Outlook* (PC(USA)). Rev. Saxton quotes a stanza and names the rationale explicitly — setting the Ten Commandments to music "deepens our discovery of the relationship God has with us and the claims that God makes on our behavior." *(Gillette's text is under copyright; paraphrased here. The stanza pairs covenant-as-promise with law-as-wise-and-wondrous, and closes on loving God and loving neighbor as the shape of a life "saved by grace.")* Thesis stated immediately: we keep these laws and find within them the place **where God's love and justice meet**. To be *tuned into God* is to be attentive to what God invites and inspires — "not only for us, but for those we live with, neighbors, strangers, and the earth itself." The three-term expansion (neighbors / strangers / earth) is set down in the first minute and every subsequent application returns to it. ##### Main Points ###### Point 1: Framing — enfleshed's remix and Jacobson's "first table" — [01:05:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSPTIhpuX5Y&t=3900s) Recalls having preached the whole Decalogue "a few years ago" using the remix from **enfleshed**, and re-reads their rendering of commandments 1–4. *(enfleshed's wording is theirs; paraphrased: practice loyalty toward what is sacred; treat every image of God as a partial glimpse only; refuse to use God's name as an instrument of harm; refuse to let productivity govern life.)* Then **Rolf Jacobson** supplies the structural frame — these are the "first table" or **"vertical table,"** the commandments governing the relationship with God: they point us toward God, they show that the goal of life is to be attuned to God, and they show that being tuned in requires **turning away from what we would seek instead of God**. Notes the fourth commandment (Sabbath) was already covered earlier this summer, and sets it aside with one line — God frees us "from the voices that claim we are simply made to produce and consume" — to focus on the first three. ###### Point 2: Commandment 1 — the primary claim, and the temptation to wiggle out — [01:06:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSPTIhpuX5Y&t=3960s) CEB rendering: nothing is to be placed ahead of God. Both **Moses (Deuteronomy 6:5)** and **Jesus (Matthew 22:34-40)** restate the negative positively — "who wants to live solely in the negative?" Callback to last week: **"Remember, relationship comes before rules."** Names the competitors specifically: money, power, pleasure, fame, control, beauty — **"even religion."** The consequence is not merely private: misplaced loyalty "harms our neighbors, and often it harms the Earth." Historical setting given some weight: the commandments arrive in a **liminal time**, out of Egypt but not yet in the land, where the covenant is formalized; the people will meet **Baal and Moloch**, but "those are not the gods who saved them or created them." Jesus' wilderness temptation cited as the same test. ###### Point 3: Commandment 2 — idol is not icon — [01:09:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSPTIhpuX5Y&t=4140s) The sermon's most careful distinction, and its most ecumenically generous move: **an idol is not an icon.** Icons "such as the ones used by our Catholic and Orthodox siblings" deepen devotion; an idol is anything we love, worship, or center our lives on that isn't God. The golden calf is the type case — the Israelites grew restless waiting for Moses, and the calf "became the object of worship rather than God." Images are meant to let us glimpse the divine; "they do not become the divine." Applications turn systemic: harm to the earth because "we do not respect and care for the home that God has given us," and harm to neighbors because "we have made idols of power and prosperity." ###### Point 3a: The honest aside on Exodus 20:5-6 — [01:11:30](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSPTIhpuX5Y&t=4290s) Interrupts her own argument to name a difficulty: *"I will admit that I struggle with verses five and six"* — generational punishment to the third and fourth generation. Reads the whole of vv. 5-6 aloud, including the thousandth-generation counterweight, then declines to exegete it. Resolution is by trust rather than argument: "Maybe I am naive, but I still believe that God offers more grace and forgiveness than we can imagine... I place my trust in God's compassion and mercy." Returns to the refrain: we are "to be tuned into God and to find our way back when we stray." **See the Logical Reasoning section below** — this is the sermon's most vulnerable minute and also its most personally honest one. ###### Point 4: Commandment 3 — the prophetic turn — [01:13:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSPTIhpuX5Y&t=4380s) Gives **two translations side by side** (NRSVue "wrongful use" / CEB "as if it were of no significance") and rejects the folk reading — this is not "the no cursing commandment." **Jacobson** again: the divine name was given so that we might call on God for forgiveness, sing thanksgiving and praise, and cry out for deliverance and healing; the name is poured out in baptism; "the life of faith consists of learning to use God's name properly." enfleshed's rendering — do not use God's name to do harm — is preferred precisely because it moves the commandment from vocabulary to power. Then the sharpest turn in the sermon: **"The theological and political threat posed by white Christian nationalism is directly tied to this commandment, whether we recognize it or not."** Followed by **just war doctrine** being reevaluated in light of technologies that let us "kill others with the press of a button without having to truly count the cost of the loss of life, the destruction of homes and habitats, and the misuse of resources and the planet." Grounds the whole move christologically: Jesus' harshest words were for the rich and religious who used God's name to justify exploitation and oppression. Lands it flat: **"Do not use God's name to do harm, period."** ###### Close — [01:16:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSPTIhpuX5Y&t=4560s) Covenant restated as mutual: "We keep faith with the one who keeps faith with us." **Sister Joan Chittister** cited — these are laws that last and lead to fullness of life. Ends on gratitude and joy rather than obligation. ##### Illustrations/Stories Thin again, and this is now a two-week pattern. There is no personal anecdote, no congregational story, no extended narrative. The golden calf — the one ready-made story in the passage — gets a single sentence and is used as a definition rather than told. The closest thing to narrative is the wilderness/liminality framing of Israel between Egypt and the land, which is summarized rather than dramatized. The illustrative work is carried instead by **lists** (money, power, pleasure, fame, control, beauty, religion) and **contrasts** (idol vs. icon, scarcity vs. abundance). Effective for a catechetical sermon; not memorable in the way a story is. Notably, the week's storytelling energy again lived in the children's message rather than the sermon — the same split as August 16. ##### Scripture Connections - **Exodus 20:3-11** (CEB) — primary text, worked commandment by commandment - **Exodus 20:1-2** — restored thematically ("relationship comes before rules") but not re-read - **Matthew 22:34-40** — the series' recurring lens; cited as Jesus' positive restatement - **Deuteronomy 6:5** — the Shema's love command, paired with Matthew 22 as the positive form of commandment 1 - **Exodus 32** — golden calf, alluded to without citation - **Psalm 19:14** — quoted in the prayer for illumination immediately preceding - Jesus' wilderness temptation — alluded to, uncited (Matthew 4 / Luke 4) - Baal and Moloch — named as rival deities, no texts cited - No original-language work anywhere: *el qanna*, *pesel*, *shav* all go unremarked even though the CEB's unusual renderings of the first two were read aloud minutes earlier ##### Key Quotes - **"Do not use God's name to do harm, period."** — [01:15:30](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSPTIhpuX5Y&t=4530s) - **"The theological and political threat posed by white Christian nationalism is directly tied to this commandment, whether we recognize it or not."** — [01:14:15](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSPTIhpuX5Y&t=4455s) - On idolatry's systemic shape: harm to neighbors follows from idols of power and prosperity, from **"a theology of scarcity that promotes rugged individualism rather than a theology of abundance centered in the care of community"** — [01:11:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSPTIhpuX5Y&t=4260s) - **"Jesus' harshest words in the Gospels were toward the rich and religious who used God's name to justify exploitation and oppression."** — [01:15:15](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSPTIhpuX5Y&t=4515s) - On images: they are "meant to help us glimpse the divine. They do not become the divine." — [01:10:30](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSPTIhpuX5Y&t=4230s) - The honest admission: "I will admit that I struggle with verses five and six." — [01:11:45](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSPTIhpuX5Y&t=4305s) - Jacobson, on the vertical table: the goal of life is to be attuned to God, and being tuned in requires turning away from what we would seek instead — [01:05:45](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSPTIhpuX5Y&t=3945s) - Chittister: these are laws that last and lead us to fullness of life — [01:16:30](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSPTIhpuX5Y&t=4590s) #### Personal Reflections ##### What spoke to me: ##### Questions raised: *Prompt from the series so far: last week grounded the law in prior relationship. Does the first table get preached as allegiance, as attention, or as trust — and what changes depending on which?* *Answered, mostly: it was preached as **attention** — "tuned into," "attuned to" — with allegiance language ("loyalty") supplied by enfleshed rather than by her own framing. Trust surfaced only in the vv. 5-6 aside, and there it did the work of ending an argument rather than starting one.* *New question: what does it mean that the sermon named white Christian nationalism as a third-commandment violation and then never told anyone what to do about it? Is diagnosis-without-prescription a failure of nerve, a deliberate pastoral pacing decision in a mixed congregation, or a structural limit of a catechetical series that has two more commandments to get through?* *And: the service handed the children a resolved theodicy of divine violence (2 Kings 2) and the adults an unresolved one (Exodus 20:5-6), in that order, an hour apart. Nobody in the room appears to have noticed. Does that gap belong in a conversation with Pastor Caroline, or is it Roxanne's to hear?* ##### Challenges/Convictions: ##### Liturgical Context Reflections: *The first table against 10 Elul and Ki Teitzei — foundational principle beside the Torah's densest catalog of particulars.* #### Applications ##### This week I will: ##### People to pray for: *From live Joys & Concerns ([01:19:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSPTIhpuX5Y&t=4740s)) — for personal prayer use, not for redistribution:* - **Virginia's son** — oncology visit at Hershey this coming week; prayers that the cancer has not spread. Virginia also asked prayer for **caregivers experiencing burnout**, "personally or professionally or both," that they find respite and rest. *(She volunteered first — "why not break the ice.")* - **Sam Skipper**, with **Denise** and **Perry** — only one fall in the last three or four days, an improvement on last week. Denise named the hardest part plainly: "I see him failing... he feels that he's getting better, but I see a different picture." She asked for grace and strength for herself, and strength for Perry "to meet him where he is." *(Continuing from August 16.)* - Thanksgiving for **Carol and Eddie Fultz**, who visited for a few days, celebrated **Holly's birthday** Saturday with cake and cards, and have already headed back to North Carolina. They asked to be remembered to the congregation. - Thanksgiving from **Erin** for Saturday's gathering at camp, with a petition attached: that we recognize the earth and everything on it as gift rather than possession — "we don't have ownership" — and steward it accordingly. - **Henry and Allison Hopper** — navigating health challenges and decisions about appropriate medical interventions (lifted by Pastor Caroline). - **Chris Willman-Bung** — fell while on vacation, resulting in a herniated disc; in considerable discomfort, home resting and recovering, hoping to avoid surgery. Pastor Caroline addressed him directly: "We love you, Chris. I know you're watching at home." *Pattern worth noting across two weeks: the concerns are heavily weighted toward **caregivers and the chronically ill**, not just patients — Virginia named caregiver burnout explicitly, Denise named her own need alongside Sam's. Erin's petition is the only one that moved outward to creation, and it arrived the same morning the sermon named care of the earth twice.* ##### Follow-up study: - Psalm 19 as the canonical bridge between creation-revelation and Torah-revelation — and what it would mean to read the Decalogue through that seam - Exodus 20:11 (Sabbath grounded in creation) vs. Deuteronomy 5:15 (Sabbath grounded in liberation from Egypt) — the two Decalogues give the fourth commandment two different warrants. **The sermon did not notice**; it set Sabbath aside as already-covered. Still open. - Commandment 2 (graven images) and the Reformed iconoclastic inheritance — a live thread for [[Hermeneutical Genealogy]], and now with a concrete instance: a Reformed pastor defending icons against her own tradition's reflex - Rolf Jacobson's Ten Commandments book, still outstanding from last week and now cited twice more — worth ordering, since it is supplying the series' entire structural frame - **enfleshed** — the queer/liberationist liturgical collective whose Decalogue remix Rev. Saxton has now used across at least two sermon series. Worth a source page: who they are, their hermeneutical commitments, and what it means that their remix is being paired with Jacobson's Lutheran academic reading without comment - **Sister Joan Chittister** — first Catholic religious cited in this series; locate the source of the "laws that last" line - **2 Kings 2:23-25** — the "young boys were actually a teenage gang" reading, its provenance, and which commentaries carry it. A clean specimen for the genealogy work - **Carolyn Winfrey Gillette** — "I Have Brought You out of Egypt," commissioned by *Presbyterian Outlook*; check licensing under OneLicense before any congregational use #### Connections - [[2026-08-16]] — week one of the series, "Nineteen Comes Before Twenty" - [[Ecclesiastes 5]] — tonight's 8:00 pm Bible study - [[Ecclesiastes 6]] — next Sunday's Bible study (August 30) - [[Creed Study]] — Nicene recited in full with the filioque, in ecumenical ICET/ELLC English, one week after the Apostles' Creed at the same C-10 reference. A congregation alternating creeds without comment is itself the "testimonies not tests" posture in practice - [[Hermeneutical Genealogy]] — three live specimens this week: the idol/icon distinction against Reformed iconoclasm; the "first table" frame inherited from Reformation catechesis via a Lutheran scholar; the 2 Kings 2 "teenage gang" harmonization in the children's message - [[Lateral Transfer Risk]] — audit below. Sermon: low risk, actively protective. Children's message: one flag worth logging - [[World Harvest Outreach]] — the sermon's explicit naming of white Christian nationalism as a third-commandment violation is a useful contrast case for the WHO corpus, where the divine name does exactly the work Rev. Saxton warns against ## Sermon Analysis *Comprehensive Sermon Analysis Template — 13-category / 65-point rubric, with Hermeneutical Awareness as the 13th category. Hermeneutical Genealogy and Lateral Transfer Risk Audit follow as non-scored companions.* #### Sermon Summary **Central Message:** The first table of the Decalogue orients the whole of life toward God — and being "tuned into God" is not a private spiritual posture but one with direct consequences for neighbors, strangers, and the earth. Genuinely both personal and communal, and unusually willing to name the communal half concretely. **Liturgical/Thematic Focus:** Exceptionally tight integration. Psalm 19 appears three times (responsive reading remix, prayer for illumination quoting v. 14, and implicitly in the sermon's creation-and-law pairing); the Nicene Creed's "maker of heaven and earth" follows a text that grounds Sabbath in creation; hymn 33's cited wilderness texts supply the "sustaining presence" of the bulletin cover; the Prayer of Dedication names both tables in one sentence. **Score: 5/5** — the whole service argues the sermon's case, not just the sermon. #### Preaching Style Assessment Primarily **Doctrinal/Catechetical**, deductive, worked commandment by commandment, with genuine **expository** moments (the NRSVue/CEB comparison) and a sustained **Prophetic** turn in the third-commandment section. Well-suited to a series-middle sermon that has to deliver content. **Score: 4/5** — clear and appropriate, but the register shifts abruptly from patient catechesis to prophetic confrontation at [01:14:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSPTIhpuX5Y&t=4440s) without preparing the congregation for the turn. A congregation being taught gently about idols for eight minutes is not obviously ready to be told about white Christian nationalism in the ninth. #### Storytelling and Illustration Thin, and now a two-week pattern. No personal anecdote, no congregational story, no dramatized narrative. The golden calf is defined rather than told. Illustration is carried by lists and binary contrasts. Inclusivity is real but arrives through *sources* rather than through stories: enfleshed's queer-liberationist framing, Catholic and Orthodox practice honored by name, the CEB's "immigrant" read aloud. **Score: 2/5** — apt material, minimal storytelling. #### Intonation and Delivery Transcript-only; no audio or video reviewed. Structurally, "tuned in / attuned" recurs at least six times as a deliberate anchor, and the closing move from obligation to "gratitude and joy" suggests an intentional softening of register at the end. **Score: 3/5 (provisional)** — revise after listening. #### Content Structure Hymn-as-epigraph → thesis → enfleshed remix → Jacobson's first-table frame → Sabbath set aside → commandment 1 → commandment 2 → honest aside → commandment 3 → prophetic application → Chittister close. Clean transitions, strong retention scaffolding via the refrain, and a well-signposted "we'll focus on the first three." **Score: 5/5** #### Engagement and Application A marked improvement on August 16. Systemic issues are named without euphemism: creation care (twice), white Christian nationalism, drone warfare and the reevaluation of just war, prosperity theology, "a theology of scarcity that promotes rugged individualism." Marginalized inclusion is real — Catholic/Orthodox siblings, enfleshed, the immigrant in the Sabbath commandment. What's missing is the second half: **no concrete action, no practice, no organization, no next step.** The applications are diagnostic ("we are seeing the harm being done") rather than actionable. No interactive element. **Score: 4/5** — strong and inclusive naming, weak on the actionable. #### Scripture Handling Text-driven rather than theme-driven; the sermon walks the passage. **Genuine translation-comparison work** on commandment 3 is rare in a Sunday sermon and is the strongest exegetical moment. Historical-cultural context is supplied (liminality between Egypt and the land, Baal and Moloch as live rivals). Justice-aware throughout. Two weaknesses: **no original-language engagement at all**, even though the CEB's unusual choices — "passionate God" for *el qanna*, "of no significance" for *shav* — were read aloud minutes earlier and were sitting there asking to be opened; and the vv. 5-6 problem is raised, quoted in full, and then set down unexegeted, with the thousandth-generation asymmetry she had just read aloud left unused. **Score: 4/5** #### Logical Reasoning The main chain is sound: canonical structure → the vertical/horizontal distinction → each commandment's positive restatement → consequences for neighbor and earth. Three things to name: - **Appeal to authority, soft and recurring.** Jacobson supplies the load-bearing structural frame for the second week running. Defensible, but the series is now resting a great deal on one Lutheran OT scholar. - **Begging the question at Exodus 20:5-6.** The text's difficulty is acknowledged and then dissolved by asserting the conclusion she prefers — God is more gracious than this passage implies — without defending that prior commitment or engaging the passage. To her real credit she flags the move herself ("Maybe I am naive"), which converts a logical weakness into an act of intellectual honesty. But it remains an unargued resolution of the sermon's hardest verse. - **Assertion doing the work of argument** at the Christian-nationalism claim. "Directly tied to this commandment, whether we recognize it or not" is well-founded and I'd defend the conclusion, but "whether we recognize it or not" is rhetorical rather than demonstrative — it forecloses disagreement instead of answering it. In a congregation that likely contains people who need convincing, that's a missed opportunity. **Score: 4/5** #### References A substantial improvement over last week's single voice: **Rolf Jacobson** (Luther Seminary, ELCA), **enfleshed** (queer/liberationist liturgical collective), **Sister Joan Chittister** (Benedictine, Catholic feminist), **Carolyn Winfrey Gillette** (hymnwriter, PC(USA)), plus two translations used comparatively. Three of five named sources are women; one is an explicitly queer collective; one is Catholic. Still absent: **Black, womanist, or global South voices** — a real gap for Exodus specifically, and a conspicuous one on the day of the UNESCO remembrance of the slave trade, when the Decalogue's own house-of-slavery prologue was one verse above the printed reading. **Score: 4/5** #### Quotes and Illustrative Stories Several genuinely memorable and original lines — the scarcity/abundance contrast, "do not use God's name to do harm, period," the christological grounding in Jesus' harshest words. Unlike last week, the best lines are hers rather than borrowed. Illustrative *stories* remain essentially absent, but that deficit is already scored above. **Score: 4/5** #### Calls to Action Personal: keep God first; be careful how you invoke the divine name; confess and find your way back. Systemic: named clearly but never operationalized. Nothing to sign, join, practice, or do; no multi-modal presentation. **Score: 3/5** — better than August 16 because the systemic content is explicit, still short of actionable. #### Style Effectiveness Analysis The catechetical walk is right for a series-middle sermon that owes the congregation content. Auditory and intrapersonal learners are well served. **Visual learners are underserved in a sermon about images** — a sermon distinguishing idol from icon that showed neither an idol nor an icon is a missed opportunity so precise it's almost funny. Kinesthetic and interpersonal: nothing. Alternatives worth imagining: a **prophetic-first** version would open with Christian nationalism and read the commandments backward from it, which would have prepared the turn that currently arrives cold; an **inductive-contemplative** version would sit inside the vv. 5-6 difficulty rather than closing it, and would suit the "maybe I am naive" honesty better than the current structure lets it. **Score: 4/5** #### Hermeneutical Awareness *(13th category)* Strong. Four distinct moves: presenting two translations side by side and letting the difference matter; explicitly rejecting a folk reading ("the no cursing commandment") as inadequate to the text; distinguishing idol from icon in a way that names and honors Catholic and Orthodox practice rather than treating Reformed instincts as neutral; and naming her own struggle with vv. 5-6 as *hers* rather than projecting it onto the text. What keeps this from a 5: the discomfort with generational punishment is named but its genealogy is not traced — she doesn't ask why a 21st-century progressive mainline reader finds this intolerable, or what tradition formed that intuition. And enfleshed's remix is offered as recovering what the commandments mean, without noting that a remix is itself an interpretive act carrying its own commitments. **Score: 4/5** #### Scoring Summary 5 + 4 + 2 + 3 + 5 + 4 + 4 + 4 + 4 + 4 + 3 + 4 + 4 = **50/65** *Up from 45/65 on August 16. The gains are concentrated in References (2→4), Engagement and Application (2→4), and Calls to Action (2→3) — that is, the sermon got more plural in its sources and more willing to name systemic harm. The losses relative to last week are in Hermeneutical Awareness (5→4), where last week's opening move on commandment numbering was more explicit than anything here.* #### Side-by-Side Comparison: Catechetical vs. Prophetic-First | Aspect | This Sermon's Style | Prophetic-First Version | |---|---|---| | Primary Style | Doctrinal/catechetical, deductive, commandment by commandment, with a late prophetic turn | Opens at white Christian nationalism and drone warfare, then reads the first table backward from the harm | | Stories | None; lists and contrasts carry the illustrative load | Would require concrete cases — a named instance of God's name used to justify policy — which supplies narrative by necessity | | Scripture Depth | Two-translation comparison on commandment 3; no original-language work; vv. 5-6 raised and set down | Would need *shav* and *el qanna* opened, and would have to answer vv. 5-6 rather than defer, since generational harm is the prophetic thesis | | Application | Diagnostic — names systemic harm, prescribes nothing | Would end on a practice or commitment, since the prophetic form obligates a response | | Risk | Low; congregation is taught, then briefly confronted | Higher; would land harder and could lose hearers before the theological grounding arrives | #### Hermeneutical Genealogy *(non-scored)* Four threads worth tracing, three from the sermon and one from the children's message. **1. "First table" / "vertical table."** This vocabulary is not biblical; it's Reformation catechetical architecture — Calvin's *Institutes* II.viii, and the Heidelberg Catechism's treatment of the law (Q&A 92–115). It reaches this pulpit through Jacobson, a Lutheran. The quiet irony is that Heidelberg is **St. John's own ancestral catechism** by way of the German Reformed / RCUS line, and it goes unnamed; the congregation received its own inheritance secondhand through a Lutheran intermediary. Worth flagging for the wiki: this is exactly the pattern where a tradition's assumptions arrive looking like neutral biblical structure. **2. Idol vs. icon — a Reformed pastor working against her own reflex.** The separation of "no graven images" into a standalone *second* commandment is itself a Reformed numbering decision (Lutheran and Catholic traditions fold it into the first), and it was made in part to authorize image-removal — Karlstadt, Zwingli, the 1566 Beeldenstorm. Rev. Saxton preaches the Reformed numbering and then spends her time on it defending icons and honoring Catholic and Orthodox practice. That's a genuine instance of a preacher inheriting a structure and declining the polemic it was built to carry. Last week's sermon named commandment-numbering as tradition-dependent; this week's *enacted* the consequence without naming it. Worth adding to [[Hermeneutical Genealogy]] as a paired example. **3. Two genealogies spliced without comment.** enfleshed's remix and Jacobson's academic reading are set side by side as mutually reinforcing. They aren't from the same stream: enfleshed is a contemporary queer-liberationist liturgical collective whose remix is a deliberate reauthoring; Jacobson's is descriptive Lutheran biblical theology. Both are defensible; using them interchangeably obscures that the first has already made interpretive commitments the second hasn't. Not a criticism of either — a note that the seam is invisible from the pew. **4. The 2 Kings 2 "teenage gang" reading.** The move — *ne'arim qetannim* recast as young men aged 15–30, taunting recast as a capital offense — has a traceable apologetic lineage in 19th- and 20th-century harmonizing commentary, developed specifically to answer the objection that God mauls children for name-calling. It solves a theodicy problem by relocating the moral weight onto the victims. Worth a wiki entry: the structure (upgrade the offense until the punishment fits) recurs well beyond this passage, and recognizing it in a friendly, progressive setting is more instructive than recognizing it in a hostile one. #### Lateral Transfer Risk Audit *(non-scored)* **The sermon: low risk, and arguably actively protective.** Several elements function as direct inoculation against high-control religious framing: - **"Even religion"** named in the list of possible idols — an explicit warning that the religious system itself can occupy the place of God. - **White Christian nationalism named outright** as a violation of the third commandment, with the christological grounding that Jesus' harshest words targeted the religious who used God's name to justify exploitation. - **No claim to exclusive interpretive authority.** Two translations offered as both legitimate; a folk reading corrected without contempt; another tradition's practice (icons) honored rather than policed. - **Prosperity and scarcity theology explicitly rejected** in favor of "abundance centered in the care of community." - The vv. 5-6 admission models a leader saying *I don't have this one resolved* in public — the opposite of the certainty performance that high-control systems require. **One flag, and it isn't in the sermon.** The children's message on 2 Kings 2 carries a frame worth logging: *God's messenger was disrespected, therefore the violence was proportionate, therefore the lesson is to watch how you speak to God's messengers.* Add the twice-repeated "maybe if more of us had a consequence, we'd be a little more careful with our words" — a wistful endorsement of retributive violence as pedagogy — and the closing joke, "don't make me send the she-bears out to you." Delivered warmly, clearly in fun, and by someone whose care for these kids is obvious. But **tone is not the load-bearing element; the interpretive move is.** For a congregation that includes people deconstructing from NAR-adjacent backgrounds, "disrespecting God's anointed messenger brings divine consequence" is close to a load-bearing beam of the systems they left — the "touch not the Lord's anointed" architecture, arriving in a progressive UCC sanctuary in a bear costume. **The structural observation worth keeping:** in a single service, the children received a fully-resolved theodicy of divine retributive violence, and the adults received an unresolved one an hour later, when the sermon declined to engage generational punishment. Neither element was in dialogue with the other. Whatever else, that's a curriculum question rather than a heresy question — but it's exactly the kind of seam that lateral transfer travels through, since the resolved version is the one the children will remember. **Risk rating: sermon low / children's message moderate; logged, not alarming.** ## Worship Leadership | Role | Person | |---|---| | Pastor | Rev. Caroline E. Saxton | | Organist | Barbara Motichka | | Choir Director | Gary Crum | | Deacon in Charge | Susan Collier | | Lector | Chani Wolfe | | Children's Corner | Roxanne Davenport | | Media Coordinators | Calvin Frantz and Neath Ham | | Bulletin cover | Edd Scheer | **The Flowers at the Foot of the Cross** are given in loving memory of **Rev. John E. Saxton** by his children David and Caroline. *(Pastor Caroline's father.)* **Worship Resources:** - Call to Worship written by Thom M. Shuman, posted on Lectionary Liturgies (adapted) - Assurance of Pardon from the UCC Book of Worship - "Ordinary and Astounding" by Layton E. Williams, included in *The Words of Her Mouth: Psalms for the Struggle*, edited by Martha Spong - *Feasting on the Word Worship Companion*, edited by Kimberly Bracken Long ## Church News & Announcements **Staff contacts:** - The Rev. Caroline E. Saxton, [email protected], (641) 260-1868 (cell) - Tonya Schwartz, Office Administrator, [email protected], (717) 263-8593 (office) - Gary Crum, Music Director | Barbara Motichka, Organist - Roxanne Davenport, Director of Children & Youth - The Rev. Stephen W. Hoffman, Pastor Emeritus **Birthdays this week:** 08/24 Connie Kaiser and Wayne Statler; 08/26 Zayla Stull; 08/27 Jennifer Hudzinski; 08/28 Eric Hoover. **Nursery Nook & Infant/Toddler Space:** The "Nursery Nook in the Narthex" quiet area and infant/toddler space in the Parlor are available for children and families during worship. Age-appropriate activity bags are also available. **Gratitude Sunday:** Sunday, August 30 — a celebration of "This is Us": who we are and sharing what we love about our church. Share photos in advance or bring them along. Pancake breakfast at 8:45 in Fellowship Hall, worship to follow at 10 am. **Share The Harvest:** Donations of homegrown produce may be brought to the Welcome Center in the front lobby, to be shared with the church family and community. **Bible and a Beer:** Faith conversation in public, 3rd Monday of the month at the Trojan Diner, 6:30 pm. Next gathering **September 21**. **Summer Special Music:** Sign-up posted on the choir room door for anyone who would like to provide special music in worship this summer — singing or instrumental. Contact Gary Crum. **Monday Afternoon Book Study:** Chapter 3 of Barbara Brown Taylor, *Learning to Walk in the Dark* — Monday, August 24, 1:30 pm, Conference Room 111. **Family Fun Day:** After worship on Sunday, September 13 — bounce house, DJ, petting zoo, face painting, music, and food. See Roxanne Davenport to volunteer. **Chili Cook Off:** Sunday, September 27. Sign up at the Welcome Center to bring chili, cornbread, rice, and/or desserts. Proceeds benefit the Power Packs program. **Travel Talk:** Pastor Caroline presents on her trip to Ireland after worship on Sunday, September 6, Room 116. Light refreshments provided. **Help Us Celebrate Roxanne:** Sunday, September 6 — celebrating Roxanne Davenport's 10 years as Director of Children and Youth. Thank-you and congratulation cards may be sent to or dropped off at the church office; cards will be presented during a special worship recognition moment. **Franklin Together — Franklin County Reentry Coalition:** Collecting essential household, cleaning, and hygiene items for people securing safe housing and reconnecting with loved ones. Donation box at the Welcome Center (full list posted there and in the e-blast); monetary gifts at http://franklintogether.org/donate. **Fall Quarter First Fruits** (August, September, October) supports Franklin Together — Franklin County Reentry Coalition, Homeless Matters of Franklin County, and the Fayetteville Fire Department. More on each organization in *The Spirit*. **Sunday Night Bible Study:** Ecclesiastes Chapter 5 with Pastor Caroline, Sunday, August 23, 8 pm via Zoom. Meeting ID 836 0593 5961, Passcode 277938; hyperlink in the weekly e-blast. **Beginners Pickleball:** September 20, 3–5 pm — the pickleball court welcomes new players. Contact Harold Collier at [email protected]. **September/October Upper Room** devotionals available at the Welcome Center. Suggested donation $1 small print / $2 large print; contact the office for a mailed copy. **Want to Stay in Touch?** Contact the Church Office to be added to the email list, receive Diana's Devotionals, and/or join the Prayer Chain. *From the live announcements, not in the printed bulletin:* **September *The Spirit*** is out and available — flagged from the chancel as the place to find what's happening and how to get involved. *(File to `2. Areas/church newsletters/` when a copy is in hand.)* **St. John's Camp prayer gathering — Saturday, August 22, recap.** Fellowship, camp memories going back to childhood and counselor years, and shared prayer. Thanks named to Dick (grounds), Renee, Mary Lee, and Rebecca (ongoing upkeep), Neath (music), Katie and Kara (setup), and Connie Evans (camp history). **Lloyd Beers and Diana Kongkeattikul indicated more prayer gatherings are being planned for the winter season** — announcements to follow. **Church school helpers needed.** Leaders are in place for the new church school year, but every group of children requires **two adults** under safe church policy, including Children's Corner. Helpers need clearances **and mandated reporter training**. See Roxanne Davenport. **Gratitude Sunday logistics confirmed live:** pancake breakfast 8:45 *and* worship itself both in Fellowship Hall on August 30. ## Vision & Mission **St. John's Vision:** We are called to love, to learn, to worship and to witness in Christ as a congregation that welcomes everyone, and seeks service that will advance God's realm on earth. **St. John's Mission:** To grow in love of God and neighbor ## Calendar & Upcoming Events **Today (Sunday, August 23):** - 11:30 am — Youth Pickleball Clinic, Fellowship Hall (lunch provided) - 8:00 pm — Bible Study on the Book of Ecclesiastes, Chapter 5, Zoom (link in Friday e-blast) **Monday, August 24:** - 1:30 pm — Book Study (*Learning to Walk in the Dark*, Chapter 3), Conference Room 111 **Tuesday, August 25:** - 5:30 pm — Yoga, Room 202 **Wednesday, August 26:** - 6:30 pm — Council Meeting, Conference Room 111 **Sunday, August 30:** - 8:45 am — Pancake Breakfast, Fellowship Hall - 10:00 am — Gratitude Sunday Worship, Fellowship Hall - 8:00 pm — Bible Study on the Book of Ecclesiastes, Chapter 6, Zoom **Looking ahead:** - Sunday, September 6 — Travel Talk (Ireland), Room 116, after worship; Roxanne Davenport 10-year recognition - Sunday, September 13 — Family Fun Day, after worship - Sunday, September 20 — Beginners Pickleball, 3–5 pm - Monday, September 21 — Bible and a Beer, Trojan Diner, 6:30 pm - Sunday, September 27 — Chili Cook Off (benefits Power Packs)