On October 29, 2023, Rev. Dr. Tim Hart-Andersen, Senior Pastor at Minneapolis’ Westminster Presbyterian Church, delivered the sermon “We Are the Church: Love and Serve the Lord, rejoicing in the power of the Holy Spirit,” which was the seventh and last of his series of sermons before he retired at the end of that month.[1] Here are a summary of that worship service and the text of that sermon.
Call to Worship
Rev. Dr. Meghan Gage-Finn led the Call to Worship with these words, “Our help is in the name of the Lord,” and after the congregation said, “maker ofheaven and earth,” she said, “Let us worship God.”
Call to Confession and Prayer of Confession
Rev. Dr. David Tsai Shinn offered the following Call to Confession and Prayer of Confession:
“Merciful God, we confess that we have sinned against you in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done, and by what we have left undone. We have not loved you with our whole heart and mind and strength. We have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. In your mercy, forgive what we have been, help us amend what we are, and direct what we shall be, that we may delight in your will and walk in your ways to the glory of your holy name.”
Then worshippers said their silent prayers of confession followed by Rev. Shinn’s Assurance of God’s Forgiveness: “Anyone who is in Christ is a new creation. The old life has gone; a new life has begun. Friends, hear the good news,” and everyone responded, “In Jesus Christ we are forgiven. Alleluia! Amen”
The Scripture: Matthew 22:34-40
“Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: ‘Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?’”
“Jesus replied: ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.’”
The Sermon[2]
“When I began thinking about the date for my final sermon at Westminster, which is today, it didn’t take me long to settle on Reformation Sunday. It may be an obscure date for many of you, but I’ve always appreciated this annual chance to look back at where we once were, to help us understand where we are and what may lie ahead.”
“We are the church, and the church has been around a long time –more than 2000 years. Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the church door in Wittenberg 506 years ago, in 1517, the date often cited as the start of the Protestant Reformation. The Presbyterian Church formally began in this land in 1706, which means that Westminster has been around for more than half the life of our denomination.”
“One reason for the sustainability and vitality of the Christian Church is its ability to adapt, like a healthy ecosystem. When circumstances have challenged the church, it has had to change – sometimes quickly, as with the covid pandemic – but usually the church transforms more gradually, finding its way, sometimes reluctantly, even kicking and screaming, with God’s help, through difficult times.”
“Twenty-some years ago I was in Cuba with a Westminster group. We were walking through the scruffy trees and tumbled-down buildings of the Presbyterian Church’s camp on the island. It was early in the first decade of this century, right after the end of the 1990’s, the período especial, the “special period” following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Cuba’s economy had been in free-fall for more than a decade and it showed everywhere, including the camp. It was bleak. No running water. No electricity. No resources. Not much hope.”
“As I walked through the camp I came upon a hand lettered sign tacked to a tree: Habrá tiempos mejores, it said, pero este es nuestro tiempo. “There will be better times, but this is our time.’”
“It was only one sentence, but like Luther’s theses, those words signaled a recognition of hard times and a willingness to face them, trusting in God to bring needed change eventually.”
“There was nothing sudden about the Reformation. Theological streams of change were flowing through Roman Catholicism long before John Calvin and Martin Luther, whose hymns we sing in our service today.”
“In the late 12th century Peter Waldo began preaching a return to the gospel basics of caring for those who were poor and destitute in Lyon, France. If parents have kids looking for Waldo, he’s in 14th century France. He was declared a heretic, and his followers were massacred by Catholic kings, but the Waldensians are still around.”
“There were others. Catholic priests John Wycliffe in 14th century England and Jan Hus a hundred years later in Bohemia both preached a new openness to the words of scripture. Wycliffe translated the Bible into common languages. Hus spoke against the corruption of the church. They, too, were declared heretics by Rome – Jan Hus was burned at the stake (which the Pope apologized in 1999) – but the seeds they planted would germinate and come to full bloom in the Reformation of the 16th century. Ironically, 500 years later, now, some of their “heresies” are now at the heart of Catholicism – ministry with those who are poor, for instance, or reading the Bible in local languages.”
“In the Reformation and in other times when the church has gone through change, those on the leading edge have often been animated by returning to the Bible. That was the genius of the Protestant Reformers. They wanted to arrive at a more focused, simple core of what it means to be the people of God. To do that they peeled back layers of ecclesiastical accretions and peered into the biblical texts themselves to find the heart of God’s desire for humankind. Sola Scriptura, they declared. Scripture alone. They wanted to rebuild the faith from the ground up.”
“Today’s gospel lesson offers a window into competing religious claims in the time of Jesus, and how he responded to them. The Pharisees and Sadducees disagreed on key issues, and each group wanted to leverage the popularity of Jesus. They, and that pesky 6 6 lawyer, peppered him with questions to help their own cause while also hoping to entrap him by his response. They asked about working on the Sabbath, about divorce, about obeying Rome – and, in today’s passage, they asked about the law. Centuries later the Reformers would return to pursue essentially the same line as they challenged the Church.”
“’Teacher,’ they say to Jesus, ‘Which commandment in the law is the greatest?’”
“That’s the compelling question for people of faith in every age: What matters most to God? What is our core religious teaching? Every attempt at reforming or challenging or changing the church, and ourselves as followers of Jesus, arises out of that single question. Jesus offers the answer, straight out of the Hebrew scriptures: ‘To love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind…and to love your neighbor as yourself.’”
“Those words underlie the Charge and Benediction I’ve offered at the end of worship at Westminster since I began serving among you. ‘Go forth into the world in peace…Hold fast to that which is good…Render to no person evil for evil…Love and serve the Lord, rejoicing in the power of the Holy Spirit.’ That’s a summary of the admonition from Jesus to love God and love neighbor. Everything else in our faith flows from the commandment to love.”
“Presbyterians relish an old phrase in Latin: ecclesia reformata, semper reformanda, the church reformed and always being reformed. Across the ages, the church has had to ask itself again and again the question put to Jesus: What is the greatest commandment? What matters most to God? In its answer – if honest and faithful – the church has either reformed itself or been reformed.”
“Change in the Church has usually come in response to shifting realities in which Christian faith finds itself. Sometimes forces outside the church – economic pressures, war, political unrest – have pushed the church in new directions. And sometimes forces inside the church – new theologies, challenges to power, new understandings of God’s call – have also brought transformation to the church.”
“In her book The Great Emergence, Phyllis Trible says the church goes through regular cycles of change, seasons of transformation which she likens to ‘rummage sales,’ when the church sorts out its accumulated stuff – theology, doctrine, liturgy, practice – and clears away all that is extraneous to the gospel in order to reclaim the core of its faith.”
“The Reformation was such a time, and it resulted in enormous change for the Christian Church – an epic rummage sale. Five hundred years earlier, the Great Schism of the year 1054, when Christianity split between Eastern Orthodoxy and Western Catholicism, was another such major change in the Church. The Reformation and the Great Schism both took place in times of serious social and political upheaval. The impact on the church in those times was transformation – whether the church wanted to change or not.”
“The world today is similarly roiled and roiling, this time by vast inequalities, international conflicts, powerful technologies, competing political values, global economic systems, massive migration, climate change, cultural hostilities, and religious struggles. Like other times in history, this is the kind of context – right now – in which the Church will have to adapt to sustain its life and witness.”
“A different kind of Christianity may emerge in response to the realities of life in the 21st century. Today there’s a struggle between clashing views of the direction of the church. Divisions in Christianity today fall along lines beyond denominational affiliation. We see that in the tensions between those clinging to a narrow and restrictive faith – increasingly linked to Christian nationalism in our country – and those trying to center their faith on the gospel mandate for inclusion and justice.”
“Westminster finds itself in the latter part of the church, trying to center our faith on inclusion and justice. Our congregation is pursuing a Christianity that practices respect for people of diverse faith traditions. We’re willing to work with them and others of goodwill to pursue systemic change for those on the receiving end of the cruelties of history and economy and culture. As we seek to live out the teaching of Jesus, we’re focused in this congregation on building community that welcomes, and listens and learns, that seeks to heal and offer refuge from a world that feels as if it’s flying apart.”
“Those commitments place us in a church growing into something new – or maybe it’s a rediscovery of something old – as old as the gospel itself.”
“We don’t proclaim a faith that excludes others; ‘I came that all may have life and have it in abundance,’ Jesus says. (John 10:10)”
“We don’t understand God’s grace as being withheld until we meet some religious test; ‘Judge not lest you be judged,’ Jesus says. (Matthew 7:1)”
“We don’t expect to find Christ in those who are successful and powerful and privileged in the world’s eyes; ‘As you did it to one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did it to me,’ Jesus says. (Matthew 25:40)”
“I consider myself a hopeful Christian universalist. I follow Jesus, and trust my salvation comes from him, but I hope and expect God’s love is bigger and wider and deeper than I could imagine. Some may call that perspective heretical, and that’s alright; from history we know that heresies often lead the church in faithful new directions, especially in challenging times.”
“Habrá tiempos mejores, pero este es nuestro tiempo. There will be better times, but this is our time.”
“Westminster, this is your time. You are the church. Love and serve the Lord, rejoicing in the power of the Holy Spirit.”
“Thanks be to God.”
“Amen.”
Responding to the Word
Led by Rev. Alanna Simone Tyler, the worshippers joined in saying the following Affirmation of Faith from the United Church of Canada:
- “We are not alone, we live in God’s world. We believe in God: who has created and is creating, who has come in Jesus, the Word made flesh, to reconcile and make new, who works in us and others by the Spirit. We trust in God. We are called to be the Church: to celebrate God’s presence, to live with respect in Creation, to love and serve others, to seek justice and resist evil, to proclaim Jesus, crucified and risen, our judge and our hope. In life, in death, in life beyond death, God is with us. We are not alone. Thanks be to God.”
Rev. Tyler then offered the Pastoral Prayer before leading the congregation in the Lord’s Prayer:
- “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen.”
Next was the Offertory portion of the service led by Rev. Margaret O. Fox with the Westminster Choir singing “I Was Glad” by C. Hubert H. Parry:
- “O God beyond all praising, we worship you today and sing the love amazing that songs cannot repay; for we can only wonder at every gift you send, at blessings without number and mercy without end: we lift our hearts before you and wait upon your word, we honor and adore you, our great and mighty Lord.”
The congregation then joined the Choir in singing Gustav Holst’s “O God Beyond All Praising.” Rev. Fox concluded this portion of the service by saying “The Prayer of Dedication for the Offerings Received” and by the choir and congregation singing “A Mighty Fortress” (No. 275).
Words of Gratitude and Farewell
As this was Rev. Hart-Andersen’s final sermon at Westminster, at the end of the service there were Words of Gratitude and Farewell from the Community expressed by Imam Makram El-Amin of Masjid An-Nur in North Minneapolis followed by the Congregation’s participating in the following Litany of Gratitude and Farewell:
- “One: God has been our dwelling place in all generations; before the mountains were brought forth, or the earth was formed, God has been our refuge, offering blessings without number and mercies without end. All: We give thanks for God’s presence through this season of life and ministry. One: Jesus Christ has been our teacher and friend: in sacraments celebrated and Word proclaimed, in pursuing justice, and teaching, listening, and guiding, seeking us when we wander from the fold of God, Christ has been our companion.”
- “All: We give thanks for Christ’s presence through this season of life and ministry.”
- “One: The Spirit has been our guide and comforter: in partnerships forged across traditions and cultures, in relationships with neighbors nurtured across borders through listening and prayer, in meals shared around wide tables of welcome, the Spirit has led and sustained us.”
- “All: We give thanks for the Spirit’s presence through this season of life and ministry.”
- “One: The love of God has been made visible through these past decades. In the waters of baptism and celebrations of life’s joys, in tender words of comfort in moments of pain, in ashes on our foreheads and nourishment of bread and cup, we have known God’s love.”
- “All: We give thanks for the Triune God’s presence through this season of life and ministry.”
- “One: O God, you have called us to ventures where we cannot see the end, by paths never yet taken, through perils unknown. Give us good courage, not knowing where we go, but only that your hand is leading us, and your love supporting us; through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
- “All: Amen.”
- Hart-Andersen then said, “I give thanks to God for my years of service among you and pray God’s blessing on what lies ahead for Westminster. “
- “All: We give thanks to God for our shared ministry with you and pray God’s blessing on what lies ahead for you and your family. Amen.”
This section of the service was concluded by The Prayer of Blessing, which was provided by the Rev. Dr. Anika Galloway, Pastor, Liberty Community Church, the first and only African American led Presbyterian congregation in Minnesota and a Westminster friend.
Music
Nor can one forget the following beautiful music throughout the service by Dr. Melanie Ohnstad, Minister of Music and the Arts and Organist Emerita; Douglas Carlsen and Charles Lazarus, trumpets; Michael Gast, horn; R. Douglas Wright, trombone; Jason Tanksley, tuba; Mike Cramer, guitar; Ben Gaunt, fiddle; Kenneth Vigne, Piano):
- “A Mighty Fortress is Our God” by Benjamin M. Culli;
- “Christus factus est pro nobis obediens” by Anton Bruckner;
- “Fantaisie a Deux” by Rachel Laurin;
- “Greet Thee, Who My Sure Redeemer Art” (Hymn No. 624);
- “Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing” (Hymn No. 475).
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[1] Bulletin of Service, Westminster Presbyterian Church (Oct. 29, 2023)(this bulletin for Reformation Sunday also included presentation of Bibles to third graders); Westminster Presbyterian Church (Minneapolis), website. A subsequent blog post will list its websites that discuss all of Rev. Hart-Andersen’s final sermons to be followed by another post with this blogger’s appreciation for his pastoral service.
[2] Rev. Tim Hart-Andersen, Sermon, We Are the Church: Love and Serve the Lord and serve the Lord, rejoicing in the power of the Holy Spirit, Westminster Presbyterian Church (Oct. 29, 2023)