Call to Worship
Pastor: God of Healing and Transformation; God of Renewal and Reformation; God of Compassion and Commitment: God of Grace and Goodness.
All: Strengthen us by your grace, that in communion with you, we may share & care to live in love as Christ loved us. In Jesus' name, we pray. Amen
The Luther Rose & Heart.
Do you know the expression “A rose is a rose is a rose.”?
The expression means that something is beautiful for what it is. It means that beauty has many ways to display itself in life. In other words, you might find beauty in a beautiful blooming rose with an intoxicating scent, or you could find beauty in a red Ferrari sport car.
A rose is a rose is a rose…. When all is said and done, a thing is what it is.
A rose is a rose is a rose.
The line goes back to Shakespeare but was articulated by Gertrude Stein in her poem Sacred Emily in 1914 with the verbatim line “Rose is a rose is a rose.”
In your bulletin you have a Rose Today. Luther’s Rose, as today is not only the last Sunday of October but even more Reformation Sunday in our Lutheran Churches. A Sunday to remember and celebrate the Reformation that changed the One Catholic Church into this tree of different denomination.
The Glorious Sunday where I can wear this beautiful red vestment, which only is worn on Pentecost Sunday beside today. The red vestment in the color of a red rose, of passion, of fire, of faith.
We are called the Danish Evangelical Lutheran Church of Southern California – and we proudly carry each name. From the Rune Stone at the entrance, Called the Baptismal Certificate of Denmark, when Denmark became a Christian Catholic Nation under King Bluetooth in 965 to 1536 when Denmark’s Church became Lutheran in confession and name… and to this very Sunday where we gather as a Danish Lutheran Church in Sunny California.
It is indeed a beautiful seal: with the golden rim of eternity, the white flower of purity, the red heart of passion and the Cross of Christ.
The seal was designed for Martin Luther, ordered by Frederik of Saxony in 1530 while Luther was staying at the Coburg Fortress during the Diet of Augsburg. Luther saw the seal as a compendium of his theology and faith.
Luther himself explained the seal in 1530:
The black cross reminds me of the faith that saves us. The human heart stands in the middle of a white rose to show that faith gives joy, comfort and peace. The white rose is placed in a blue field, symbolizing a faith in heavenly joy, grasped in hope. The golden ring symbolizes that Heaven lasts forever and has no end.
The Luther Rose is indeed a rose is a rose is a rose.
Reading Jeremiah 31.31-34
31 The days are surely coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. 32 It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the LORD. 33 But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 34 No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, ‘Know the LORD’, for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the LORD; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.
Sermon: ” The Heart of Our Faith.”
In Luther Rose there is a heart. A red passionate heart of love.
In the Reading from the Prophet Jermiah there is also a heart. God promises that he will make a new covenant with his people. And the covenant will not be rules and regulations written on paper or in books. But Gods law written on our hearts.
Place your hand over your heart for a moment. Let your breath be steady and feel how your heart is beating.
What is our heart telling us? What is the heartbeat in each one of us tell us?
It tells us that we are human, of flesh and blood, with vital organs in our bodies including our hearts.
It tells us that this heart is pumping blood in our veins and life to our body – but even more here this Sunday morning the prophet Jeremiah is telling us that the heart is also pumping the law of God in our veins and life into our bodies.
Our hearts can ache with heartache, of lost love, of misunderstood love.
Our hearts can burst and boom when we are in love, when we feel love and when we feel loved.
Our hearts can tell us what is right or wrong. Because God put his law into our hearts, so we know God deep down. We might forget him from time to time. We might ignore the signals and the signs telling us what to do. We might try to suppress our red beating hearts and the message that they carry to us…. But still God is in our hearts, whispering to us: Know the Lord, Listen to his Words, Feel his love and embrace his grace.
So again: place your hand on your heart and listen. What is God speaking to you today?
Lord, let mu heart be good soil, we sing and pray every Sunday.
Lord, let me heart be good soil.
Open to the seed of your word.
Lord, let my heart be good soil,
where love can grow
and peace is understood.
When my heart is hard,
break the stone away.
When my heart is cold,
warm it with the day.
When my heart is lost,
lead me on your way.
Lord, let my heart be good soil.
It is indeed a beautiful heartfelt prayer that ends our service and sends us into life with each other asking God to keep speaking to and in our hearts:
Make our hearts and minds receptive to Gods love and peace.
Make our hearts soft, warm and faithful that we follow Gods way and listen to Gods words.
And please we pray; let Gods word and presence break the hardness, the coldness and the lostness of our hearts.
A rose is a rose is a rose.
A heart is a heart is a heart.
And we pray that God will continue to speak to our hearts. Amen.
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